


The Sudden Stop

by Byrcca



Series: Episode Rewrite (because my way is better!) [5]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s03e03 The Chute, Episode: s03e04 The Swarm, F/M, NaNoWriMo 2019, Pre-P/T, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 78,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24961330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byrcca/pseuds/Byrcca
Summary: “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”~ Douglas Adams.When Tom and B’Elanna are falsely convicted of an act of terrorism and thrown into an alien prison, they have to rely on each other until Captain Janeway and the crew ofVoyagercan rescue them. They revisit old ghosts and form unexpected bonds while they fight to survive, but being back onVoyagerdoesn’t necessarily mean they feel safe again.My take on The Chute and its aftermath, leading into The Swarm.
Relationships: Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Series: Episode Rewrite (because my way is better!) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652164
Comments: 121
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: The notes are almost as long as the chapter. 
> 
> I’m not convinced this is ready to post. It’s going up w/o a proper beta because I wouldn’t do that to anyone, and because if I’m mired in too much opinion and rewriting, I’ll never post it. But thanks go to LA & Tortitudette for the scene by scene betas, and for being a sounding board when I needed one. 
> 
> A dear friend of mine poked and prodded me to try NaNoWriMo. She did it herself several years ago and said that everyone should try it. (Or try it again). So, riding my high from Fictober where I wrote 70,000 words, I thought how hard can it be? Hahaha.
> 
> But I ended NaNo with a solid 52,000 words and change. I had an ending sketched out, though unwritten, and I was pretty proud of myself. It was only my second attempt. The first, 10? 15? years ago ended after a day and one paragraph. Sometime in mid-December, long enough afterwards that I was over it, I reopened the doc, and the fic grew by 3k words mostly due to splitting one scene into two (show, don’t tell) and fleshing out description. Then I realized that the _story_ wasn’t Tom and B’Elanna in that Akritirian prison, it was what they do afterward, how they handle the experience and move forward, and that my ending no longer worked. Uggghhhhh….. 
> 
> Here’s what I came up with. 
> 
> Over a year ago the gracious and talented Alpha Flyer gave me permission to use her Rules for Starfleet Personnel In Captivity from her amazing, poetic story, Grace. I have, twice now. 
> 
> This is for Sue, who has always encouraged my writing even though she’s a Marvel gal, not a ST fan. I’ll love you forever my soulmate friend.

*** 

_”They were not the same eyes with which he had last looked out at this particular scene, and the brain which interpreted the images the eyes resolved was not the same brain. There had been no surgery involved, just the continual wrenching of experience.”_

~ So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (1984), Douglas Adams. 

He was seated at a table on the edge of the patio between the fountain in the central square and the roadway. He’d chosen it because it was located within the long shadow of the cafe building next to him, dropping the temperature by a good five degrees, and because it allowed him to keep an eye out for his companions who were now officially late. He placed his chair just within the clean, straight line of the shadow that cut across the pavers and sliced the courtyard diagonally into two halves: dark grey and dazzling silver, the colour of _Voyager’s_ hull. Most of his body was in shade, but he closed his eyes and tipped his head back so that the sun was hot on his face and shoulders. His vision was suddenly washed in a reddish-orange hue. He smiled. 

A breeze played in his hair, tossing it around his forehead, and he caught the scent of flower blossoms in the air, sweet and spicy all at once. The wind picked up for just a moment and blew a fine spray of water from the fountain toward him, spattering his arm and shoulder with icy drops. He’d replicated a striped, collared shirt for his shore leave, and wore it over an old, comfortable tee shirt, but the day had warmed more than he’d anticipated when he’d dressed this morning, and he was contemplating removing it. He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled wider; contentment bubbled inside of him. His view from _Voyager’s_ helm was inarguably beautiful, but it felt good to be planetside again, to walk on soil and grass instead of carpeted corridors and hard metal deck plates. To look upwards and see the sky, wispy clouds scudding across its pale greyish-blue face, instead of black space dotted with stars.

He sat straighter and opened his eyes to people-watch, wondering about the various men and women who passed by his cafe table as they went about their day. He’d never done this on _Voyager_ : mused about the crew’s histories or dreams or motivations. Maybe because they were too close, living in each other’s pockets on the small ship a tenth the size of his last ‘fleet posting. Maybe, because he saw the same people day after day, he assumed he knew them after two years. But here on Akriti, everyone was new, every face unfamiliar, their lives filled with potential for adventure and mystery.

Of course, if he were being honest, he’d admit that he wasn’t really focusing on all these new faces but scanning the crowd for a familiar one. One familiar face in particular. He had beamed down to the planet with Harry and B’Elanna, muscling his way into their shore leave. They had planned an expedition to the Akritirian power generation plant, and he didn’t like the idea of being a third nacelle on their shuttlecraft, the _USS Boring_. They had invited him to come along on their tour, likely purely out of politeness, but it wasn’t Tom’s idea of a good time. He’d hoped he could convince them to play hooky with him and go on a hike through the rolling hills outside the city, or shopping at one of the many markets that dotted the central boundaries of the city proper. He’d wanted to spend the day with them, to see if either of them just could relax and have fun. 

In the end, he’d had to admit defeat and had decided—ruefully—that they probably considered a trip to a power plant fun. He had declared that he was going shopping, and was planning to sample a little of the local cuisine and maybe flirt with some of the locals. Harry had warned him about breaking hearts, but he’d really been looking for a reaction from B’Elanna. He hadn’t gotten any. They said they’d meet him in the town square off the Laktivia Recreation Facility for lunch, and she and Harry had left Tom to his own devices while they headed to the reactor plant located just outside the city.

Really, he’d joined them because he wanted to spend some time with B’Elanna. She was a bit above his league to be honest, her mind grasping complex equations that brought his to a full stop. He would still be trying to get from A to C when she was mentally computing the square root of forty-seven divided by M cubed. To be honest, Harry was smarter than he was, too, in that respect at least. Not that he was a nitwit; you couldn’t pilot a starship and not get quantum physics on some level, but…

He and B’Elanna had danced around each other politely for the last year and a half, both friends with Harry but not really friends with each other. Tom, of course, had noticed her beauty and her tight, firmly muscled body the first time he’d laid eyes on her and he’d felt a pull toward her, a little spark of ‘what if’. They’d met three years ago, during his short adventure with the Maquis, and though she hadn’t given him the time of day, he’d never forgotten the stunning but snappish half-Klingon engineer. He’d recognized her immediately when he’d spotted her in the stairwell of that Ocampan tunnel. Even sick and covered in dust and dirt he’d thought she was gorgeous. And that attraction was back, that pull. As if the universe had thrown them together again for a reason.

Tom had arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early to claim a table and scope out the landscape. While he waited for them, he ordered a pitcher of something cold to drink, nothing alcoholic, and three glasses, and sat back to watch the world go by. He smiled his thanks at the pretty server when she set the jug in front of him and filled his glass, and shook his head when she asked if he wanted something to eat. “I’m waiting for some friends,” he told her.

They should have been here by now, he thought. Not that there was any reason to worry. They couldn’t have gotten lost, but even if they did, a quick call to the ship or asking any of the locals for directions would have put them on the right track.

Tom picked up the menu and started to peruse it, trying to make sense of the odd characters that made up the Akritirian written language. He wondered if it was logographic. Really, it was too bad they didn’t have a linguist or an anthropologist onboard _Voyager_. He should have brought a tricorder, he thought ruefully. At least the menu had pictures. Much like a regular meal in the mess hall, he’d just have to point at something and hope for the best.

He tried a sip of the cold, bubbly juice. It wasn’t too sweet and had a refreshing tang. He decided he liked it, but wondered if it might be too tart for Klingon taste buds. He scanned the square again and, as if he’d conjured her, there was B’Elanna on the other side of the patio, weaving her way through the tables. A ray of brilliant sunshine sliced through the scattered clouds, painting her body in light and shadow. She squinted against the glare that shone directly in her eyes. The wind was playing with her hair, blowing it into her face, and he watched as she raised a hand and pushed it behind her ear. He waved to get her attention, and saw the moment that she spotted him. She answered with a wiggle of her fingers.

He had a few moments to watch her before she reached his table, to observe her as she moved gracefully toward him, and he took full advantage of them. She was wearing her ‘fleet boots, but was decidedly out of uniform. She’d taken Kes’ example and had dressed in a simple tunic over a pair of form-fitting leggings, and they showed off her firm thighs and shapely calves. The tunic looked soft and tactile, and enhanced everything her uniform hid: the curve of her breasts, the flare of her hips, her narrow waist. The colour was a burnished, reddish brown that made her skin glow. Or maybe it was the sunshine and fresh air. 

“Hi.” She reached his table and plunked into a chair, dropping a wrapped parcel on the tabletop. 

“Hi to you, too,” Tom said. “Have fun on your outing?” 

“Yes.” 

Tom pulled an exaggeratedly puzzled frown. “That’s it?” He wondered if she thought he was too dumb to understand the finer technical aspects of the Akritirian power distribution network, but he didn’t want to ask her in case she confirmed his theory.

He reached for a glass and poured her some of the fizzy juice. Ice cubes clattered from the pitcher into her cup, and the liquid splashed up and wet his fingers. Apparently, ice cubes were universal. He handed the glass to her, and her fingers brushed hers when she took it from him. He felt a little tingle, a slight ache, and smiled. 

“Thanks,” she said. She studied him for a moment, her eyes hooded, then snorted and smiled back before she answered his question. “Their power generation system is rudimentary compared to Federation standards, but its distribution network is completely unlike _Voyager’s_ so, yes, I thought it was interesting.” 

She took a hearty swig of the drink and her face puckered, either from the cold or the tartness, Tom wasn’t sure. “If you don’t like it, I can order something else.” He turned in his seat and looked for the server, and B’Elanna’s fingers, cold and slightly damp from the glass, landed on his arm.

“No, it’s good. I just wasn’t prepared for the bubbles.” 

“So, where did you lose Harry? Or is he still elbow deep in a plasma relay somewhere?”

She rolled her eyes. “He saw a store that sold musical instruments and went in to see if they had any compositions he could look at.” She shrugged. 

“And you did some shopping, too, I see.” His eyes slid to her parcel. Her hand landed on top of it and she pulled it a little closer toward her side of the table. “Not going to give me a hint at what you got?” 

“It’s just… clothing.” 

She waved her hand dismissively, and he was immediately intrigued. The surefire way to make him curious was to try to put him off the scent.

“Clothing…?” He raised an eyebrow suggestively. He’d been looking for an opening for a while. For some way to approach her, to let her know that he was interested in more than coffee or breakfast with her and Harry in the mess hall. He’d noticed Freddy Bristow hanging around engineering, hanging around _her_. He knew that she’d agreed to play Parrises squares with Bristow, but he hadn’t been able to find out if the match had already taken place or if they had plans to play regularly. Bristow made Tom feel competitive, and that made him want to … to make him back off. To make him leave B’Elanna alone. To win. Which pissed him off because, technically, he and B’Elanna weren’t even friends. Really, they were no more than friendly work colleagues who happened to have Harry in common so he had no say in who she spent her time with. But he couldn’t help it if the idea of her spending time with Freddy bothered him.

“It’s just a dress I saw in a shop window,” she said with a shrug. “Nothing special.” She reached for the menu and made a show of studying it.

He’d never seen her in a dress, he realized. As far as he knew, today’s tunic and leggings combo was the closest she’d come to one. He’d seen her in her uniform more times than he could count, and in her Maquis clothing a couple of times, back when the two crews had first merged. He remembered the gray outfit she’d been wearing when he helped to pull her out of that tunnel on Ocampa, the feel of her slight body against his, his hand on her waist, her head heavy on his shoulder as he helped her over the bare dirt. But he’d never seen her wear a dress.

No guts, no glory. He took a slow breath. “I’d like to see you wear it some time,” he said.

She scoffed, and rolled her eyes at him. “In your dreams, Paris.”

“Every night, Torres.” He smiled and watched as her cheeks coloured a dark pink. Was B’Elanna Torres, the terror of junior engineers everywhere, blushing? It seemed impossible.

She focused on a spot beyond his left shoulder and her face lit up as she sat up straighter in her chair and raised a hand to wave. She smiled as she stood up and called, “Harry, over here!” 

Tom turned around and located Harry, crossing the street. Harry raised his arm—he’d spotted them, too—and Tom turned back around and reached for the empty glass to pour him a cold drink. B’Elanna was still on her feet, smiling, and Tom let his eyes rove over her as he picked up the pitcher. The breeze pushed a few strands of hair into her mouth, and she reached up to pull them away. He realized that she had pretty hands. They were delicate, graceful.

Suddenly, all of her grace was gone. She rose into the air, flying sideways, her mouth open in a startled exclamation, her eyes wide registering her shock. Her arms were flung wide, one pushed behind her back, the other bent at an incongruous angle, hand near her waist, elbow in the air. One leg was raised, her knee bent, foot pointed upward, while her other leg pointed straight down toward the ground. Her tunic had ridden up, and he could see a flash of her belly; sunlight reflecting off her skin.

It was a static image of outrageous motion.

The sound was deafening, a physical presence on the busy restaurant patio on a bright, sunny afternoon, and he was momentarily frozen, pinned to his chair. Then he was falling. He felt the rush of air against his eyes, in his hair. The force of sound against his skin, pushing him up and backwards. The glass was knocked from his hand; the air was knocked from his lungs.

Blurred movement. Then sudden silence. Then nothing. 

***


	2. Chapter 2

Pain bloomed red behind his eyelids. Sound was muffled in his ears, like he was underwater. He opened his mouth to speak, inhaling thin breath. His ribs seized with agony, and nausea rose in a flash of heat, his skin prickling as a fine layer of sweat broke out over his body. He tasted bile. He clamped his teeth together, jaw rigid, tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth as he fought the urge to vomit. It only made the pain in his ribs worse. 

“Wh...where…” 

Someone shoved him and the room turned upside down. His head swam: his balance gone, shadows blurring with motion, air rushing past his hot cheeks. He reached out his arms to break his fall; thought he reached out his arms; tried to. He lost consciousness before he hit the ground. 

***

Pain. And light so bright it was blinding. Tom’s expression screwed into a scowl, and he flinched away from the light. He tried to lift a hand to shield his eyes but his arm wouldn’t move. “Waass…” His mouth was dry, and his tongue felt thick and foreign in his mouth as he tried to wet his lips. He tasted blood.

“You’re a soldier in the… Star Fleet Federation, is that correct, Lieutenant Paris?”

“What?” Tom turned his head and tried to spot the person questioning him, but could make out nothing past a brilliant glare. He squinted into it, fighting the headache that pounded with his pulsebeat. “Wha’ happ’nd?” 

He closed his eyes again and saw a wash of pink dotted with bright green rimmed in red, an afterimage of the bright lights sparking on his retinas. 

“How extensive is your combating training, Lieutenant?”

“I… What?”

“What do you know about the Open Sky organization.” 

“Who?” Tom shook his head and pain flared again, pounding in his temples and squeezing, vice-like, across the top of his head. “Look,” he tried, “you have me confused with someone else. My name is Lieutenant Thomas Eugene Paris, from the Federation starship _Voyager_. Our crew has been granted shorelea—”

“I have granted you nothing!” the voice boomed back with a hard edge in its tone that made Tom flinch. It had been quiet, almost soothing in its melodic rhythm, but now his questioner sounded suddenly, furiously, angry. “You and your partner are responsible for the deaths of forty-seven off-duty patrollers!” 

Partner? What…? Then Tom remembered. He’d been sitting on the cafe patio. The day was absolutely perfect: warm, with a light, cooling breeze. It had been made more perfect when B’Elanna joined him. Harry was across the road, waving as he walked toward their table. Then it was chaos. He remembered B’Elanna being lifted into the air, her off-duty clothing that he had been admiring, a brown blur before his eyes. He remembered glimpsing a flash of her skin as her tunic was blown up by the force of the blast…

“An explosion,” Tom said. “There was an explosion at the cafe.” Fear gripped him then lending him strength through a jolt of adrenaline, and he pulled at his restraints. “Where’s B’Elanna? Where’s Lieutenant Torres?” Was she wounded? Dead?

“Your partner has already confessed her involvement with the Open Sky network and her part in the conspiracy to destroy the recreation facility. If you give us the names of your contacts, tell us where you got the trilithium, it might mitigate your punishment.”

“No.” Tom frowned. His arms were bound to the chair at wrist and elbow, and he tightened the muscles in his forearms and jerked against the restraints again. Hard metal cut into his flesh. “No, you’ve got it wrong. We were caught in the blast. We’re victims—”

“You are terrorists! Murderers! And unless you tell me the names of the other people in your organization, we will be forced to deal with you harshly.”

Tom shook his head again, real fear skittering up his spine to pool in the back of his neck. “I demand to speak to my captain.” His voice sounded weak, his words slurred. “Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship—”

“You’re not in a position to demand anything, Lieutenant Paris.” The voice was soft and silky again. “Your partner has already admitted to your involvement in the bombing, and sympathies with the organization.” 

“No…” Tom shook his head, then said, “No,” more forcefully. She wouldn’t do that. How did they find out that she used to be in the Maquis? Did she tell them? She couldn’t have, wouldn’t have. “We didn’t do anything! We’re here as guests of your government. If you’ll just contact my ship—”

He felt a sharp, stinging sensation at the back of his neck, and his vision blurred. His ears felt thick; the voice was muddied now, muffled. 

“If you had cooperated, I might have been able to help you. I’m so sorry, Lieutenant Paris.” 

Tom fought to stay awake; fought to speak, to deny it. Darkness won. 

***

B’Elanna paced the small cell, anger and fear warring inside of her. Not a new sensation, especially the anger part. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been held; didn’t know what day it was. She hadn’t seen Harry or Tom, hadn’t spoken with anyone since she’d awoken bound to a chair in an empty room with bright lights shining in her eyes. A male voice had spoken to her, tried to get her to confess to a bombing in the plaza. She’d tried to tell them that they were mistaken, that she and Tom hadn’t done anything wrong, but her interrogator hadn’t believed her. 

He had told her that he knew about her ties to the Resistance, knew all about her past, and for a moment she’d thought he’d been referring to her time in the Maquis. He said that Tom had confessed to the bombing and told them everything. They were lying. Tom would never confess to something they hadn’t done. And she was sure that he wouldn’t admit to her—and his own—Maquis past, either, not when they were being held as persons of interest in a bombing that had killed forty-seven people. 

She reminded herself that she didn’t even know if Tom was still alive. She’d seen the shocked expression on his face, the confusion in his eyes just as the bomb had detonated. He’d been smiling at her as he reached for a glass so he could pour Harry a cold drink. She’d shifted her attention from Tom’s smile to Harry while he dodged other pedestrians on his way to join them, and she had just turned her gaze back to Tom when the blast hit them. She’d noticed how the sunlight glinted off his hair, turning it golden. She’d noticed how pretty his incredibly blue eyes were as they locked with hers, then a force—rushing air—had blown her upward, sending her body flying backwards over the table beside theirs. Tom had looked confused for a moment, then he was gone from her line of vision, and B’Elanna had blacked out. 

She’d hit her head and dried blood still matted her hair. Her leggings were torn on one knee, the flesh beneath scraped, and one of the sleeves of her tunic had torn at the shoulder seam. She had bruises on her arms that she could see, and she suspected she had ones on her back that she couldn’t. 

Six months ago she’d been locked in a detention cell, accused of working with the Alsaurian Resistance against the Mokra Order. She, the captain, Tuvok, and Neelix were on the planet covertly, hoping to trade for some tellerium in order to stabilize the matter-antimatter reaction in the warp core. They’d been denied a permit to trade by what passed for the government, but they’d beamed down anyway, despite the risk of being caught by the local police. The risk had become reality once she and Tuvok had been apprehended. They’d been held for days, not knowing if the captain and Neelix had made it back to the ship, or if they were being held in a separate cell. 

The Mokra Order hadn’t touched her, but she’d been forced to endure listening to Tuvok’s screams as they tortured him… 

Fear wasn’t an emotion that she felt often; she was more likely to react to danger with anger, or a systematic internal monologue of all the ways she could fix the situation. But the sound of Tuvok’s screams had sparked a primal terror in her. The fact that he was Vulcan, that his strict mental training meant he should have been able to control his emotions, made the situation even more frightening for her. Until that moment, she hadn’t thought about whether or not Vulcans could feel pain, she had simply assumed that they wouldn’t acknowledge it if they did. She hadn’t considered the difference between emotions and sensation. 

He’d never disclosed the specifics, but she’d wondered for a long time just what they had done to him to make him cry out. They’d told the police that they didn’t know anything about the Resistance, that they were unable to give them the information they demanded even if they’d wanted to. But, of course, they hadn’t believed her, and had continued to torture Tuvok and, in effect, her as well. Instead of breaking her, it had sparked a rage inside of her that had hardened her resolve to not tell them a damn thing. 

She felt the same way now. 

She could still hear Tuvok, in her nightmares. Were the Akritirian’s torturing Tom right now? Was he in pain? Screaming? And what about Harry? They had refused to tell her anything about either of them, even whether or not they were still alive. 

She roared her frustration and kicked the wall. The physical shock of striking the unyielding metal reverberated from her heel up her leg. She huffed and shook it off, pacing to the corner of her cell where she sank down, huddled into her haunches. Tears threatened and she fought them back. She didn’t want to acknowledge which place they stemmed from: anger or self-pity, but she refused to give in to them. She wanted the bastards who were holding her to see her anger, but she refused to let them see how scared she was. 

The captain must be looking for them. Chakotay, certainly, wouldn’t abandon her here. They would come for her. And then they’d find Tom and Harry, and everything would be okay. It had to be. After all the shit she’d survived: her sorry childhood and her mother’s disappointment, fighting the Cardassians with the Maquis, being hauled seventy thousand light years to the other side of the galaxy and being infected with that disease by the Caretaker. All the firefights with the Kazon. The Vidiians… The Akritirians were going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than this to defeat her! 

She stood and looked around the cell for the hundredth time, searching for a control panel, a seam in the wall, anything. She’d find a way to get out of here, then she’d find Harry and Tom, and they would contact the ship and _Voyager_ would come for them. 

***

No. No! This couldn’t be happening. Not again. 

Tom fought against the guards who hustled him out of the courtroom. He’d been shackled and led from his cell down a maze of hallways, shoved bodily through a doorway, pulled, stumbling, by one arm to stand in front of a group of uniformed officials. His judges stood on an elevated podium so they looked down at him. He’d had to crane his neck to see them, and they reminded him of the carved gargoyles that decorated the millennium-old churches in Marseilles, where he'd spent a year while he was in the Academy. 

The charges were read to him: sedition, using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, malicious destruction of property resulting in death, forty seven counts of capital murder, one hundred and seven counts of malicious endangerment resulting in injury. He’d wondered if they’d counted B’Elanna and Harry in those numbers.

He’d been in the courtroom for less than three minutes. The speaker said that his partner had confessed to the crimes, named him as a co-conspirator, and had already been sentenced. He was pronounced guilty, his punishment: life in prison.

Dread had kept him frozen, ice in his veins making him chilled. Tom had stood there, disbelieving, until a guard had pulled him roughly toward the door. He finally found his voice. 

“No!” he yelled. “This can’t be happening! I’m an officer on the Federation Starship _Voyager_. I demand to speak to my captain. I demand to see a lawyer!” 

One of the guards struck him in the face, the force of the blow cutting his lip and snapping his head backwards. He staggered a few paces and was shoved roughly forward by the guards. “Where are you taking me?” he gasped. 

“Where you belong, filth!” one of them snarled. 

Tom was struck hard between the shoulderblades and he almost fell to his knees. He staggered between the guards, trying to catch his breath as they half-pulled, half-dragged him down the hallway. “Where’s Torres?” he asked. “Let me see her, please.” 

He couldn’t believe that she had confessed to the bombing. Or Harry, either. The idea was ludicrous. 

“Shut up,” a guard snarled.

“I need to speak to my captain,” Tom tried. “Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Fed—” 

The guard hit him again, a hard blow to the back of the head, and pain made Tom’s gorge rise; made his knees buckle. 

“Shut up, I said!” the guard shouted. 

Tom’s vision tunnelled, and he didn’t have the breath to object. 

***


	3. Chapter 3

His head felt heavy and when he opened his eyes and tried to focus, they burned. He was in some sort of transport, his cheek pressed to a metal wall, ass numb on a hard metal bench. A restraint dug into his belly. He tried to straighten up, but the vehicle jolted, and he was knocked sideways; his head bounced against the wall. 

Someone smacked him across the face. “Wake up!” 

Tom was pulled to his feet and dragged to a doorway hatch. “Wait,” he mumbled. He needed to know where he was; what was happening. “Wait. What’s…” 

The hatch door slid into the wall of the craft, then another door irised open to a shadowy hole. He was shoved roughly through it and the floor dropped out from under his feet, and he was falling, sliding down some sort of ramp, gaining speed as he went. He clawed at the slick walls and tried to dig in his heels to slow his momentum, but it didn’t help. The metal was cold on his skin as his shirt rode up his back. His spine connected painfully with the rigid plates of the slide and he stiffened, raising his trunk in an attempt to keep his shoulders from bouncing against the hard surface. 

He landed at the bottom with a jarring thump. His ass was the first part of his body to connect with the unforgiving floor, then his shoulders and the back of his head. Pain exploded behind his eyes and reverberated down his spine, and spread in a burning wave over his back and skull. He winced and curled his body into a foetal position as he gasped for air. The bruises that he’d acquired in the bombing screamed in protest. He felt like a small shuttlecraft had just bounced up and down on his chest. 

“New prisoner!” someone shouted.

Tom heard the rhythmic clang of metal on metal, voices chanting and hooting. He was pretty sure that he was the reason for the commotion. A hand reached for his leg, fingers brushing over his ankle, and he kicked out reflexively. His pulse jumped, fear sending a rush of panic through him. He had to get to his feet. 

A cheer went up, and more hooting. Tom rolled onto his hands and knees and felt grit under his palms. He saw a metal slide protruding from the wall, surrounded by glowing red, circular lights. That must have been how he’d dropped into this place, he figured. He must have slid down the tunnel. He pushed up from the filthy floor and staggered to his feet. He was surrounded by a group of rough-looking men, at least thirty of them, all with a look of expectation on their faces. 

“Hey, pretty,” one called. “Are you lost?”

A roar of laughter went up around him. The man who’d spoken swaggered toward him, turning and playing to the crowd. Tom noticed the sharp blade in his hand. 

“Look, friend,” Tom started.

“Make him ugly,” someone yelled.

The man swung his arm in a slow arc, the blade slashing close to Tom’s face. He jumped backward and felt hands on his back shoving him forward again. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a situation like this, cornered by a group of rough, angry men. He hoped, whatever they did to him, it wouldn’t hurt too much.

Someone tossed something toward him and it smacked against his chest. Tom caught it, and registered the sharp edge of a blade against his fingers. It was a home-made knife, not much more than a sharpened length of metal with a rag wrapped around one end serving as a hilt. So, the crowd didn’t want him dead, they wanted entertainment. He’d been trained in close-range, hand-to-hand combat, in using small weapons—anything that came to hand. He could knock out someone with his boot if he had the time to kick it off and wield it as a weapon. He just had to remember how… 

He’d grown soft in _Voyager’s_ bosom. If—when—he got back to the ship, he’d talk to Tuvok about remedial training. Tom knew that this was the time to bluff. To stop reacting and _act_. He straightened and hardened his features, lifted his chin. He eyed his opponent: skinny, dirty, scraggly hair. He didn’t look like much of a threat. But there was something off in his expression, something in his eyes that told Tom to be careful. 

Tom lifted his arms, the hand without the knife open, palm out in a, what are you waiting for? gesture. He beckoned the man closer with a twitch of his fingers. The man swung his knife in a gentle arc aimed more or less at Tom’s belly. Tom just smiled and stepped to the side. Their audience had backed away, giving them room, some climbing scaffolding comprised of criss-crossed pipework. Some had short lengths of pipe that they were banging against the metal, others were simply chanting a guttural, ‘huh huh huh’ that added to the tension, serving to spiral Tom’s nerves even tighter. He decided that the sound would make his reactions sharper rather than dull them and feed his fear. 

He’d been trained for this.

He cocked his head and beckoned the man forward again. His opponent glanced to the side, seemingly searching for some sign of approval. Maybe he was looking for an escape route. Picking a fight with a guy on the floor was one thing, attacking a fit, armed man who was up and on his feet, was another thing altogether. 

The man sliced the air with his knife wildly, once, twice, great arcing swings that over-balanced him, sending him staggering forward a few steps and left his belly and chest wide open. Tom refused to back up—he wouldn’t allow himself to be pinned to the wall—and instead kept up his circling of the man until his attacker had his back to the closed hatch and slide that had deposited Tom in this hellhole. Tom sent a quick glance over his shoulder, ascertaining that there was indeed a narrow corridor that led further into the compound between what looked like stacked storage containers. Cover and a place to hide if he needed it. 

His opponent made a few short jabbing gestures with the knife, and Tom raised an eyebrow. “What? That’s it?” he taunted.

His face screwed up in rage. He roared and charged toward Tom like a bull, head down, shoulders forward. He appeared to have forgotten about the knife in his hand. Tom hadn’t. Instead of stepping aside this time, Tom tensed and moved forward, smacking into the man’s shoulder and pushing his knife arm against his side. He wrapped his fingers around his opponent’s wrist and squeezed, digging his fingernails into his flesh at the same time as he sank his teeth into his ear. Bizarrely, Tom’s brain processed that he stank and his skin tasted slightly metallic. Salty. Vomit rose in his throat. 

The man howled and brought his fist against the side of Tom’s head and Tom’s ears rang. Tom pressed his knife against the man’s ribs dragging the blade over his clothing until the point was at his throat. “Drop it and I’ll let you live,” he growled. The man grunted, and Tom was overwhelmed by the stink of his breath: sour, with the sharp, pungent scent of decay. 

His hand scrabbled at Tom’s arm, clutching at his shirt sleeve, and Tom heard the fabric tear. He felt a flash of anger; this was a brand new shirt! It was striped in golds and reds and browns, all of his favourite colours, and was made of a uv filtering fabric. It had cost him all of this week’s replicator rations, plus half of his shore-leave allowance. Tom roared his anger and shoved his opponent backward until he had him pinned against the wall. 

The crowd was chanting now, ‘ _Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!_ ’ and Tom wanted to indulge them. He wanted to see if the man’s blood was red, or blue, or green. He wanted to watch it pool on the floor. He imagined how it would feel to slide his knife between his ribs, to see his eyes widen in shock and pain and disbelief. 

Tom sucked a breath and shivered. He stiffened, and his grip on the terrified man relaxed. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d been trained to kill, unflinchingly, when necessary. But first he had to try to de-escalate, disarm, incapacitate. Kill was pretty damn far down on Starfleet’s list of officer-like behaviour!

He shoved the man away from him, tripping him up as he staggered backwards. The knife dropped onto the filthy metal floor and Tom kicked it aside. The man fell, sprawling onto his ass to the jeering and cheering of the crowd. Apparently, they were rooting for the winner, whoever that might be.

Tom’s chest was heaving with exertion and fear, adrenaline pumping through his system. He turned, knife raised, blade pointed outward, transmitting a warning: come closer and I’ll fight you, too. The crowd seemed to get the message and started to drift away. Tom wanted nothing more than to sink down and catch his breath, but he knew that showing any sign of weakness was a bad idea. An idea that would likely get him killed. 

A leanly muscled, compact man paced up to him, eyeing him up and down. “That was impressive. You’ve had training.” 

“Some,” Tom acknowledged. He raised his chin, squared his shoulders. 

The man was studying Tom intently, seemingly ignoring the knife in his hand. Tom flicked his gaze over the man’s shoulder. Four more men, scruffy but not as thin as the man who had attacked him, appeared to be guarding his back. Tom recognized him for what he was: the king of a hill composed of shit, the raggedy men his ‘flies’. 

“I’m Pit. I could use someone with training. Someone to train them, maybe.” He gestured toward his ‘bodyguards’ with his chin. 

Unlike most of the men who had gathered for the floorshow, they looked well fed, strong. Not the kind of people Tom should piss off. “I’m looking for some friends of mine,” he said. “A man, about my height, dark hair, smooth forehead like mine.”

Pit was silent for a long while, just staring at Tom, assessing him. “I haven’t seen him.”

“What about a woman? Shorter, dark hair, forehead ridges like yours but less pronounced.” 

“You want a woman, I can get you one. For a price.” 

Tom was instantly repulsed by the idea and anger welled in him again. Women had been part of the audience to his fight, and they were just as straggly and dirty as the men. “No, thank you,” Tom said.

“You like men? I can get that for you, too.” 

“I don’t think I need anything you’re offering right now, friend,” Tom said. He kept his tone cool and cordial. He was careful not to brandish the knife, not to appear overtly threatening, and he knew he walked a fine line; he didn’t want to appear weak, either. 

“I may not be your friend for long,” Pit said, a warning in his tone. 

Tom smiled widely, making sure it reached his eyes. He wasn’t above turning on the charm. “Oh, I’ll remember your offer,” he assured Pit. “But right now, I’m going to look for my _other_ friends.” 

Pit looked Tom up and down a final time, then backed up a few steps before turning his back to him. Tom breathed a sigh of relief, and carefully slid the makeshift knife into his belt. He searched the floor for the one his attacker had dropped, but it was long gone, likely picked up by someone in the crowd. 

Tom moved toward the aisle between the large metal containers and scanned the area, searching for Harry or B’Elanna. A tall, broad-chested man with messy hair and a scraggly beard came up to him, staying several paces out of reach. “You don’t want to make an enemy of him,” he said. 

Tom dipped his chin in a nod. “I’m not trying to make any enemies at all, friend,” he said smoothly. 

“But you will. Few people survive here without taking sides. One or another. Or another.”

Tom kept his expression neutral. “And who’s side are you on?” he asked.

The man smiled, showing surprisingly clean teeth. “My own.” He nodded behind them, to the open area where the chute had deposited Tom. “You’ve impressed them,” he said. “They’ll leave you alone, for now.”

“Good to know,” Tom answered.

“You’ve won his hut. I’ll show you.” He cocked his head, gesturing with his chin further into the corridor created by the stacked containers. Tom hesitated. “I have no interest in killing you,” the man assured him.

Tom thought about that for a moment, weighed the pros and cons of trusting this unknown man, then nodded. “Tom Paris,” he said. 

“Zio.” He looked Tom up and down, assessing not just him, but the clothing on his back. “Come on, it’s this way.”

Tom took a long, slow breath in through his nose, paying attention to the air filling his lungs, grounding him, calming him. He had to trust someone; he certainly couldn’t survive here alone. He nodded, and followed Zio into the shadows created by the maze of stacked containers.

***


	4. Chapter 4

A high-pitched shriek startled Tom out of a doze. He sucked a breath and stilled, listening as his heart hammered in his chest. His hand drifted to the knife in his belt, fingers caressing the fabric wrapped hilt. He raised his other hand to scratch the back of his head. He’d been itchy since he’d arrived, and he briefly wondered if he’d picked up lice or fleas from the inhabitants of this hovelton. 

He hadn’t slept, not really; he hadn’t dared. There didn’t seem to be a nighttime in his new prison so he wasn’t sure how long he’d been here, but judging from the empty feeling in his belly he thought it was at least a day. The cellblock where he’d been put was perpetually dim, the floor and walls painted with long strips of shadow and gloom, the inside of the other shelters cloaked in threatening shadows. He was grateful for what little amount of light there was; he didn’t want to be here in the dark. If the people who ran the place thought it would have a calming effect on the inmates to live in continual twilight, they were wrong. It didn’t. Tom would have preferred a bright glare to this. 

He felt slightly queasy. By his reckoning, he hadn’t eaten for several days, not since before the explosion at the town square. Zio’s tour of the prison hadn’t led him to a mess hall. He had shown Tom to his hut, then left him there. The hut was nothing more than a storage container tipped on its side with a filthy scrap of cloth for a door and an equally filthy blanket on the floor. He had done a cursory exploration of the cellblock afterward, and spoke to a few of the inhabitants, mostly to show them that he wasn’t afraid of them. But as much as Tom knew he needed to do a proper reconnaissance of the prison and make a mental map of the area, he was loath to walk into the middle of a situation where he would end up being the one on the floor. He needed an ally, someone to watch his back. 

It appeared he was in some large facility, windowless, filthy, and made entirely of metal. He’d spied a few exhaust fans on what he assumed were the outer perimeter walls, safely situated behind grillwork that was securely attached to the wall. The blades looked sharp, deadly, and he figured anyone trying to escape through the air shaft would never make it out alive. He hadn’t seen any guards. 

The shriek came again, followed by ranting and the dull echo of feet pounding on the metal grill that served as the floor of the second level of the prison. There was some sort of commotion, the raised voices of people shouting. Any show was entertainment around here, apparently. Tom debated joining them to find out what was going on. The shrieking changed pitch and the crowd was hollering now, feet stomping as they worked themselves into a frenzy. Another fight? Something worse? Concern pushed him to his feet. 

He lifted the fabric flap on his hut and followed two other men toward the cause of the noise, paying attention to his back. Being here, in this filthy, apparently unguarded prison, reminded him of some of the seedier parts of the Alpha Quadrant where he’d honed his downward spiral after being pushed out of Starfleet following his disgrace at Caldik Prime. Filthy places, full of crime and misery, where the light of the Federation didn’t reach. 

He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and saw an old man on the floor, writhing and kicking. His hands were at his head and he was tearing great handfuls of hair out of his scalp. Fear washed over Tom and, for a moment, he couldn’t move. He shook himself, his first aid training coming back to him and lending his voice an air of authority that he didn’t feel. 

“Help him,” Tom shouted. The gathered men simply laughed and hooted. Tom turned away in disgust and reached for the man on the floor. He spun in a half circle and Tom had to jump to the side to keep from being injured as he kicked out wildly. He was still clawing at his head, and blood had begun to stain his white hair a dark red. 

“Help me hold him!” Tom appealed to the jeering crowd.

“You’re wasting your time.” Zio had quietly come up behind Tom and was standing at his right shoulder. “No one helps anyone here without payment of one kind or another.”

“He’s hurting himself,” Tom insisted. Zio simply shrugged. 

The man was digging at the back of his skull now, pawing at his head and screaming guttural words that Tom couldn’t understand. A clump of bloody hair drifted past Tom’s boot and he swallowed hard. It was a horrible thing to watch, frightening. His pulse was racing, his respirations coming fast and shallow. “We can’t just stand here and do nothing,” he insisted. 

“It’s already too late. Once they reach this stage, it’s far too late.” 

Tom frowned. What was he talking about? Mania? Psychosis? 

“It’s the clamp,” Zio explained. “Makes them all mad, eventually.”

“Clamp?” Tom asked. His forehead wrinkled in confusion. 

Zio raised his hands and turned, parting his hair with his fingers. Tom saw a flashing red dot embedded in the man’s skull, and immediately reached toward his own head. It took a moment to locate it, but then he felt it, cold and hard under the pads of his fingers, and his pulse ratched up. Fear crawled through his belly. “What is it?” 

“I told you: the clamp. Everyone has one.” 

“To punish us?” Tom asked, envisioning electric shocks being applied through it straight to his nervous system. “To keep us in line? Is he being disciplined for something?”

Zio just stared at him. 

The man on the floor started shrieking again, a high-pitched, continuous ‘Ah!Ah!Ah!’ while the people around him stomped and cheered. Blood covered his hands now, smears of it streaked across the floor, and he paused his wailing, his face contorted in concentration as his fingers dug into his scalp. An ‘ooooohhhhh!’ swelled from the crowd, ending in a cheering roar as the man managed to pluck the shining clamp from his head. Blood spurted. The man convulsed, kicking and shuddering, his face a rictus of pain. 

After an agonizing few moments, the old man stilled, his head slumped at an unnatural angle, body twisted, his eyes staring at nothing. He was obviously dead. Tom stood frozen in disbelief.

People descended on the body and started to strip it. Hooting and laughing, the man who had attacked Tom yesterday pulled the boots from the dead man’s feet. He spied Tom and glared, then turned and ran away. Someone else went through his pockets before walking away empty handed. A third stripped his sweater from his body, pulling him almost to a sitting position, then letting him fall backward. Tom heard a dull _thunk!_ when his head hit the hard metal floor. 

Tom felt sick. He was shocked by the brutality of it, both the death of the old man and the reaction of the crowd. He turned away, and found Zio staring at him. 

“You’ll get used to it. Or you won’t.”

“What… What is this thing?” Tom asked. His hand slid to the back of his head again, his fingers probing until he found the small, hard ‘clamp’ embedded in his skull. Fear skittered through him and tightened his gut. 

“I told you,” Zio said. 

He turned to go and Tom grabbed his arm. “But why? Why would they do it?”

Zio cocked his head and observed Tom for a moment. “You already know. You’re feeling it now, aren’t you? You’re tense, anxious. Afraid. You want to lash out at someone, anyone.” He smiled and gestured toward Tom’s head, his face lighting up with enthusiasm. “That’s the clamp. That’s its purpose.” 

It was barbaric, and Tom had a flash in his mind’s eye of a borg drone, its body sprouting implants and circuitry, wires and connectors reaching into his brain and stimulating his ‘fight or flight’ response. 

“We need to get out of here,” he said. He glanced around, eyeing the walls, the ceiling. His gaze landed on the chute protruding from the wall. “If I can get outside, contact my ship… I know they’re looking for me. My captain won’t let me just rot here!”

“No one gets out of here.” Zio shook his head, certain in his pronouncement. “We’re three hundred metres below the ground. There is no getting out, believe me.” 

“There has to be a way. The chute,” Tom said. “That’s how we got in. If we just climb back up—” 

“You’ll be fried. Just like him.” Zio motioned to the dead man with his chin. 

Tom felt a wash of shame; it didn’t seem possible, but he’d forgotten about him. He took a breath, calmed himself. Focused on the body on the floor. “Help me with him,” he said.

“And do what? Are you planning to use him to decorate your hut?” Zio smiled.

Tom didn’t. He swallowed a retort that sprang to his lips. He wasn’t going to win any friends here by being belligerent. He looked around. The area was deserted now that the others had stripped the body of anything of value. 

“There must be a…” Morgue? Infirmary? He didn’t know. No one had responded to the commotion, no guards, no medical staff. And no one had come to carry away the body. “We can’t just let him stay there and rot!” Tom insisted. 

“Someone will clear him away before he starts to smell.” Zio shrugged. 

“This has happened before?” Tom asked. He had an idea. “What happens to the garbage? To the waste?” The place reeked of unwashed bodies and warm metal, as well as the persistent underlying stink of sewage. He’d found a toilet of sorts earlier, nothing more than a hole in the floor, and had used it quickly, holding his breath the whole time. It wasn’t nearly wide enough to fit a body. 

“There’s a pit, with an incinerator at the bottom. I wouldn’t suggest you use it as a means of escape.” 

“Then the air shaft. If we can figure out how to get the grill off and stop the blades…” 

Zio just shook his head. “Do you think others before you haven’t tried? I’ve been here a long time, Tom Paris. There is no way out.”

There had to be a way. “We got down here. There must be a way back up,” Tom’s voice was rising and he took a breath to calm himself, then spoke again, more softly. “What about a water pipe?” Tom whirled around, scanning the walls. There had been a container of water in his hut when he’d first explored it, with a cup snapped onto the top. A thermos, like the ones in the mess hall on _Voyager_. He had rationed the water even though he’d wanted to gulp it all, and he still had a bit left. He hadn’t found a tap or a fountain to refill it. 

“There’s a tap but Pit controls it. Sometimes water comes when food does,” Zio replied. “You need to accept the fact that you’re here until you die. It’ll be easier when you do.” 

Zio walked away, and Tom stared after him. He refused to accept that, refused to believe that he would die in this hell hole. Janeway would come for him, like she had before. Unless she’d decided that he wasn’t worth the trouble. Unless she’d decided that life on the bridge of _Voyager_ was easier with him gone. Or... unless she’d been told that he’d died in the blast.

No. That was ridiculous. What was it Zio had said about the clamp? That it ramped up your fear and anxiety. That it was designed to make the inmates antsy; to make them turn on each other. Kathryn Janeway wouldn’t leave him behind, he was sure of it. She would demand proof that he was dead, and without that proof, she would search for him until she found him. 

His nausea was back and his mouth watered with it. He wished he hadn’t delayed lunch while waiting for Harry and B’Elanna at the cafe. He hadn’t seen either of them during his recon earlier. He’d counted close to seventy men and women, most of them Akritirians. Harry and B’Elanna would have stood out. He’d made inquiries, but either no one had seen them or, if they had, they hadn’t told him. They must be safe on _Voyager_ , he decided. Any other explanation for their absence was simply unacceptable so he refused to consider it. 

He decided to take another tour of the cellblock. He might find food, or someone who would be willing to be an ally. He headed to the right, following one of the narrow corridors created by the stacked containers. He hadn’t gone very far before he recognized one of Pit’s henchmen sitting atop a hut. The man reached into his belt and pulled out a long, narrow blade, and held Tom’s gaze as he tossed it into the air, then caught it again. An obvious warning that Tom decided to heed. They eyed each other, and Tom nodded, then turned and went back the way he’d come. He had no desire to run into Pit again, especially on what he assumed was his own turf. He had to consider the possibility that Pit was holding Harry and B’Elanna, but he doubted it; they would have fought hard before being taken, and someone would have let on that there’d been a fight. 

Janeway would find him and get him out; Harry, at least, would insist on it, though B’Elanna might not argue as hard to get him back. He smiled a little wistfully, thinking of her, picturing her in her new dress, something soft and flowing that skimmed her body. Desire rose in him like a wave. Was that the clamp? Or merely a byproduct of his latent attraction to her mixed with his fear and loneliness? 

Tom’s hand crept to the back of his head and he fingered the clamp embedded there. He ignored the body on the floor as he passed it, and made his way back to his hut. 

***


	5. Chapter 5

Bright lights. Shadows. Blurred motion. The sound of a blaring klaxon was deafening. It shut off abruptly and her ears rang with the absence of sound. Red alert? Were they under attack? She turned her head and pain flared along her neck straight into her brain. It shot through her, numbing her to her fingertips. She must have fallen in the attack and hit her spine or the back of her head… 

Then she remembered. 

People hollered and chanted around her as she lay, dazed and winded, on the floor. Legs circled her. Faces loomed out of the shadows, jeering and threatening.

She’d been held without food by the Aktritirian police for the last three days, and she felt weak, ill; she was now certain that she’d been drugged, too. She groaned and curled into a ball, pulling her knees to her belly in an attempt to stretch out her spine. She held her aching head in her hands.

“Hey, girlie.” Someone shoved her shoulder with their booted foot, and her body rocked. There was laughter. 

B’Elanna was instantly alert. She rolled onto her hands and knees and looked up, searching for the person who had shoved her. She’d been lucky: it could have been a kick to the head. A dirty, scruffy man was eyeing her, his wide smile showing missing and rotting teeth. 

“Aren’t you a pretty thing? You want to come with me?” 

There was a burst of laughter from the gathered crowd, and B’Elanna jumped to her feet and immediately shifted into a fighting stance: arms raised, hands up with her fingers curled into claws. The man frowned, then grinned, playing to the crowd. 

“Come now, I won’t hurt you. Much.” 

There was another roar of laughter, and the sound of metal clanging against metal joined the chorus of voices. B’Elanna bared her teeth in a snarl. “Stay the hell away from me,” she warned. She darted a glance at the crowd. They didn’t look any cleaner—or friendlier—than the man in front of her. 

The dim lighting made it difficult to make out much about the place—a detention centre? a prison?—but she could see that it was filthy. She had grit on her palms from pushing herself up from the floor, and her fingernails cut into her flesh as her hands fisted. Red circular lights caught her attention and she noticed a metal slide protruding from the wall: that must have been how she’d been dumped here. 

She flicked a quick glance around. She was in an open space, the walls rising tens of metres to the ceiling. There was a second story made of a metal framework with a grill floor, not unlike _Voyager’s_ upper engineering deck in design. People were gathered there watching her and the piece of crap who was harassing her. Some were standing, but most were sitting on the mezzanine that ringed the area where she stood, their legs hanging down into the empty air. They were shouting and banging on the metal piping. On her level, she counted twenty or so people milling around herself and the asshole who had challenged her. They all looked like they were expecting a show.

She refocused her attention on the man. He was shorter than Tom and Harry, and scrawny, not much bigger than Vorik but without the ensign’s wiry Vulcan physique. He was showing off to the crowd, first grinning at her, then turning toward the other men and laughing as they egged him on. They wanted a fight or some other form of violence, and she realized that her best shot at coming out of this in one piece was to make them all think she was too much trouble to bother with. 

The man made a swipe for her arm, and she smacked his hand away to laughter from the crowd. Another man, taller than the first and, if it were possible, dirtier and more raggedy, pushed through the audience and looked her up and down. He shoved the first. “Mine!” he said. 

“No, mine!” the first answered. The second shoved the first and B’Elanna edged back a step. If they wanted to bash each other brainless fighting over her, she would let them. The first man shoved back, and the second landed on his ass on the floor. There was more laughter and stomping of feet. The rhythmic clanging of pieces of pipe being banged on the metal framework above her head made her pulse ratchet up and she took another step back. The fallen man struggled to his feet, and suddenly the two were shoving, pushing, swinging fists. She kept them in her peripheral vision as she backed further away. 

“Get out of my way.” A third man with a long strip of dirty cloth tied around his forehead pushed through the crowd and grabbed her by the upper arm. “Let’s go.” His voice was a threatening snarl in her ear and held a ring of authority.

She stiffened immediately and tried to pull away. He was older, grizzled, staring at her with hard eyes. Unlike the two men who were fighting over her, his expression was calm, like he was used to getting his way. For a moment she wondered if he was in charge, if he was part of some sort of security force here, but his clothing gave him away. He was just another inmate. His fingers were like a vice on her arm, and B’Elanna ducked and pivoted, jamming her elbow into his ribs in an attempt to loosen his hold. Her arm slid out of his grip and she bolted but was stopped by the crowd that had ringed her. 

“Grab her,” he ordered. 

She managed to take a step before someone reached around her from behind and grabbed her wrists, criss crossing her arms over her chest. His grip was strong enough to bruise, his hot breath gusted into her ear, and he laughed as he nuzzled her throat. The stink of him was almost overwhelming: his breath, the metallic stench of his unwashed body. B’Elanna choked and coughed even as she raised her leg and slammed her booted foot into his knee. He crumpled with a grunt and a surprised curse. She whirled away from him, her pulse hammering, breath coming in short bursts as genuine panic started to rise in her. 

Her eyes locked with a woman in the crowd, but she wasn’t sympathetic. Instead, she stood stone-faced while the crowd slowly backed B’Elanna toward the chute. “Get the hell away from me!” B’Elanna warned. The edge of the slide was at her thighs and the man with the cloth around his forehead who had ‘claimed’ her was smiling reassuringly as he advanced on her, one hand held out toward her. As if that gesture would calm her? 

Fear licked at her, and the urge to run was almost overwhelming, but she had nowhere to go. She pulled back even more as he came closer, even though she knew that with the chute at her back she was cutting off any escape route. She braced her hands on the curled edges of the slide, raising her leg so she could kick out in defence. If she could climb up a little higher maybe she could jump off and run? But the crowd was no longer amused by her show of resistance; they were starting to jeer. They had sided with the scruffy, confidant man with the hard eyes. 

He made a grab for her, and she kicked out at him. She lost her balance and tipped backwards and her back hit the slide. The crowd _oooohhhed_. He laughed, and grabbed her ankle and pulled her leg upward, upsetting her even more. 

“Get your fucking hands off of her.” 

B’Elanna’s head whipped around at the sound of the familiar voice. “Tom!” she said. 

Relief washed through her until she registered his expression. His face was set, jaw clenched, his eyes hooded in anger. He glared at her, his eyes flinty, then shifted his attention to the man who had her by the foot.

“I’ve already claimed her, Tom Paris. You’re too late.” 

“I’m not going to say it again, Pit.” Light flashed off a blade in Tom’s hand. “She’s mine.”

“I say she’s not.” 

Pit let go of her ankle and straightened, and B’Elanna skittered up the slide putting a bit of distance between herself and the crowd. They’d turned away from her now, too entertained by Tom’s showdown with this Pit to bother paying attention to her. 

“She’s the reason I’m in here,” Tom snarled. He’d turned away from her, too, addressing the room. “She’s my wife!” He glanced back at her, and the look he shot her was scathing. “And she’s an operative with Open Sky.” He turned his head to sneer at her. “She told me she loved me, convinced me to marry her. Then she talked me into setting a bomb at the Laktivia Recreational Center. We killed forty seven patrollers! Forty seven!” 

The crowd seemed to approve as a rumble of laughter and muted cheers rippled through it. Tom had been circling casually nearer to her as he spoke, and he stopped close enough that he could reach out and touch her. He didn’t. Instead, he looked her up and down, disgust evident in his expression. 

“She said she loved me, but she was really just using me. She sold me out to the authorities.”

B’Elanna tried to hide her shock at that comment. She’d been in enough seedy bars and backwater space stations in her time between Starfleet Academy and _Voyager_ to read a room, and she realized what Tom was doing: not just stamping his ownership on her as a co-conspirator in the bombing—something that she had repeatedly denied while she was being questioned by the Akritirian police—but claiming her as his property by marriage. It _might_ be something these animals recognized, but it just as likely might not. 

“We’d been married for a week when we planted that bomb. It was her idea! Then she turned around and told the tribunal that it was mine, that I forced her to help me.” He turned his head again and gave her a look that was filled with loathing. “If she’d just kept her mouth shut, we’d have gotten away with it. But she set me up from the start.”

It was her cue, she realized. 

“I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been cheating on me with that whore, Megan Delaney!” B’Elanna yelled. The crowd roared with laughter. She scrabbled down the chute and planted her feet on the floor. 

Tom froze for a moment, surprise flickering over his features, then he seemed to clue in. “What I do with my time is my business,” he said. 

He looked at her intently and gave a slight nod: he understood. She felt a hand close on her arm again, and was pulled backwards. Tom’s body jerked, his attention moving to the man holding her, and his eyes narrowed. 

“Well, it looks like you don’t want her anymore. I’m keeping her,” Pit said. 

Tom moved so quickly that B’Elanna would have sworn he’d transported across the room. One moment he was standing near the chute, the next he was behind Pit with his knife to his throat. 

Pit let her go and raised his hands in surrender. “Take her then,” he said. “For now.” 

Tom jerked his chin at her, and B’Elanna moved to his side and put a hand on his ribs. He was warm and solid, and she felt absurdly better knowing he was real and not a dream. They backed up a step, and Tom let go of Pit, who moved quickly out of reach. 

“I’ll have her when you’re dead,” Pit said, glaring as he backed away. 

Tom was still brandishing the knife as he eased them away from the men grouped near them. The show over, the crowd had broken up and was starting to disperse. His arm came around her shoulders, and B’Elanna gripped his side. She felt slightly weak with relief. “I’m so glad you’re—” 

“Shut up!” Tom grabbed her by the hair and pulled, tipping her head back so she was staring into his face. She froze. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but she didn’t know what he was up to. He looked at her and widened his eyes: play along. “Come on,” he snarled. 

To the delight of the people still watching them, he propelled her in front of him, his hand still fisted in her hair. Some laughed, others jeered, but no one tried to stop them. They moved along a twisting corridor walled in by the stacked metal cargo containers until he turned a corner and stopped abruptly. He let go of her and sheathed his knife in his belt, then reached out to grab a filthy piece of fabric and fling it back over the top of a container. He shoved her inside. The container was less than two metres square, and the top of her head brushed the ceiling. Ducking, Tom followed her inside, then reached behind him and pulled the curtain back into place. 

As soon as he turned back toward her, B’Elanna launched herself at him. Tom’s arms closed around her, and he hugged her so tightly he almost lifted her from the floor. She hugged him just as hard. She felt his body all along the length of hers: her legs between his, his belt buckle and the handle of his make-shift knife digging into her belly, their chests together. She could feel his heart beating through the fabric of their clothing. Or maybe it was hers, hammering so hard that she felt it in her ears. She caught a whiff of stale sweat off of him but didn’t care. Under it, he still smelled like Tom: warm, familiar. Like home. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Tom whispered. Her face was buried in his shoulder, and one of his hands cupped the back of her head. The other was wound tightly around her ribs. He was slightly crouched because of the height of the metal container, and his breath tickled her ear. 

He nuzzled her hair, stroked her head and back, then he stilled and eased the strength of his embrace abruptly. She wasn’t as ready to let go. She stood there, leaning against him, matching her breathing to his. 

“Did I hurt you?” He was massaging her scalp, petting her hair, brushing it back from her face while he stared at her intently. 

She straightened, finally, and shook her head. “No. What about you?” It was dim in their shelter, but light filtered through the loosely-woven cloth that hung in the doorway and she stared directly into his eyes. “Are you okay?” 

His hands dropped to her shoulders and then fell away from her. “Have you seen Harry?”

“No. When I saw you, I thought you were together.” 

“He’s not here.”

“Maybe he got away. In the bombing. Maybe he wasn’t hurt and he made it back to _Voyager_.” She really, really needed to believe that was true, because the other option, that he’d been seriously hurt or killed, was impossible to comprehend. 

“Maybe,” Tom agreed. He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. His body shook. “God. When I saw you fly through the air…” 

She was bruised and dirty, but otherwise she was fine. “I’m okay,” she reassured him. “Did you have the same welcoming committee?” She jerked her head in the rough direction of the clearing with the chute. 

“Huh,” Tom blew a breath. “Yeah.” He turned away from her and looked around the small shelter. “Sit down,” he said. 

There was a mound of blankets in one corner of their new quarters, and B’Elanna eyed them suspiciously. 

“You get used to the smell after a while,” Tom said. He reached up and scratched at the back of his head. 

“You might. You don’t have a Klingon nose.” B’Elanna looked at him. “Have you seen any guards? How many people are here? There has to be a way out.” She started to step past him, toward the doorway, and he grabbed her arm.

“No guards, just the inmates. And you don’t want to wander around out there, trust me.” His fingers twitched on her arm before he let go.

He seemed jumpy, nervous. It was likely just the adrenaline rush from the confrontation with that man, Pit, working through his system, but she felt it was something else. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me? How long have you been here?”

“Two days. I think.” He shrugged. “Look, the only authority here seems to be the other inmates, and they aren’t exactly friendly. We need to be careful, watch our step.”

It wasn’t like the Tom Paris she knew to be so cautious, so… afraid. When they’d been held by the Vidiians, in that mining camp, he’d been strong, focused. The fear she’d felt then, when she was completely human, had been foreign to her, and she’d relied on Tom’s strength and calm to get through those days in the mine. But he wasn’t like that now. For all his bravado with Pit and his men, Tom seemed on edge, afraid, like at any moment he would curl up into a ball and pull that disgustingly filthy blanket over his head. 

She glanced between the gaps in their curtain doorway and studied the corridor beyond. The lighting was dim, and she couldn’t see anyone hanging around, but that didn’t mean that no one was outside waiting in the shadows. There was a constant background noise of voices, and sound echoed off the metal deck plates and walls of the containers, so she couldn’t gauge how far away the people were. Unease licked at her lower spine, anxiety making her stiffen, making her hands clench. 

Her stomach growled and she put a fist to her belly. In an attempt to lighten the mood, she said, “So, where’s the mess hall in this place?” Her mouth lifted in a grin. 

Tom frowned, then seemed to recognize that she was joking. His face suddenly brightened as he appeared to remember something. He moved around her and stooped to dig into the mound of old blankets. He produced what looked like a thermos from Neelix’ mess, and her belly tightened with a sudden stab of homesickness. 

He carefully poured water into the cap and handed it to her. “How long has it been since you’ve had any food or water?” 

“A couple of days.They haven’t given me anything since they questioned me the first time.” 

Tom nodded and handed her the cup. “Be careful. Don’t spill it,” he said.

She felt a flicker of irritation. She was a grown woman, she wasn’t about to spill her drink even if her hands were shaking.

“Slowly,” Tom cautioned. 

The water smelled sulphurous and fetid. She took a cautious sip, then a little more, it tasted slightly bitter and the fact that it was warm made it doubly unpleasant. She wanted to gulp it anyway, but instead offered the cup to Tom. He took it, his fingers wrapping around and between hers, and tipped it to his mouth. He was so close to her that his hair brushed her forehead. He released the cup and pushed it toward her mouth, and she took another sip and swished it around her teeth before she swallowed. She wanted more, but… 

“Is this all there is?” she asked.

Tom’s jaw firmed and he nodded. 

They had drunk a little more than half the cup, maybe fifty or sixty millilitres. She desperately wanted the rest. “Maybe you should pour it back,” she said.

Tom nodded and did so, carefully setting the cup to the rim and tipping the water back into the container. 

“I don’t suppose you have any food?” she asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “I haven’t eaten since I got here.” 

B’Elanna nodded. “The table service at this place is terrible,” she said. 

Tom jerked his head back toward her and smiled. “Yeah. I’m never coming here again. Some shore leave, huh?” he asked. “I think that when we get back to the ship, I’m going to suggest that they should remove Akritiri from the Delta Quadrant visitor’s guide.” 

He stowed the thermos under the blankets in the corner of the hut then sat, pulling his legs up and resting his elbows on his knees. She was still feeling the effects of residual adrenaline from the fight, and that, combined with the chill in the small metal hut, made her shiver. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her palms briskly up and down her arms. 

Tom patted the floor at his side. “You might as well conserve your strength.”

She sat stiffly beside him for a few moments before she gave in and leaned against him. His arm came around her back, and she felt the heat of his palm warm her skin through the sleeve of her tunic. She shifted closer, leaching his warmth and solidity. One hand landed on his knee as she rested her arm along his leg.

“Well,” she said, “this is familiar. Remind me to stop going on away missions with you.” 

His mouth quirked. “At least you’re in one piece this time,” he said, obviously getting her reference.

“I think I could use a little of my fully-Klingon self right about now,” she admitted. In spite of the fact that they only had a thin curtain for a door, their little cubicle felt private. Secluded. He was warm and solid, and she rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes for a moment, appreciating the comfort she found in having him there with her. 

Despite this physical closeness, really, they weren’t intimate. They certainly weren’t as close to each other as either one of them was to Harry. He’d drawn them together, been the only thing they had in common, really. Well, Harry and _Voyager_. And their stint in the Maquis, she supposed. But Tom had only been with Chakotay’s cell for a few weeks before he’d been captured by a Starfleet ship, and she’d been based planetside in a repair dock on a planet in the Valo system, and had only met him a few times. 

She remembered his attitude when they’d first been stranded in the Delta Quadrant, the defensive, offensively arrogant ladies’ man, romancing everyone with breasts. Well, everyone but her. And she remembered Seska’s vilification of him. Of course, look how that turned out. Seska was the spy, the enemy, and Tom had saved the ship more times than B’Elanna could count in the last two years. Tom had saved her, in a way, in that Vidiian mine. 

His quiet voice disturbed her reverie. “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”

She glanced up directly into his face, and was slightly startled by how close he was to her. She could see the lines of fatigue around his mouth, and the startlingly pretty colour of his eyes. He was looking at her hair, and she raised a hand to her head and smoothed it down. “No, it’s okay. I knew what you were doing.” 

He nodded. “What happened to you? After the bombing?”

She had a sudden, vivid memory of movement, of blurred objects flying past her line of vision. The feeling that she was floating, falling. Of Tom’s startled expression as he was seemingly yanked backward out of his chair. She must have been knocked unconscious because she didn’t remember the pain of landing. 

“I woke up in a cell,” she said, her voice low. “I thought I would have been more badly hurt, but I guess a medic must have looked at me.” He nodded, listening. “A guard came and took me to an interrogation room. They tried to get me to confess to the bombing, but I told them that it was ridiculous. I kept asking them to contact the ship but they ignored me.” Her hand strayed to her chest, where her communicator should have been. “I asked for my communicator back but they ignored that, too.” 

“The same thing happened to me,” Tom said.

“When I got back to my cell, there was food and water waiting.”

“There was?” he asked, surprise evident in his expression.

“They didn’t feed you?” she asked? 

Tom shook his head. “So,” he said. “Rule number nine,” Tom said. “Did you eat it?” 

She nodded, but lifted an eyebrow in question. It took her a moment, then she eventually clued in: Starfleet Protocol for Officers in Captivity. She hadn’t studied the rules during her short tenure at the Academy, but Chakotay had drilled them into the head of every new Maquis recruit, just in case they were captured by the Cardassians or the Feds. Rule nine stated that they had to eat when given the opportunity, to keep up their strength. It went hand in hand with Rule number two, which encouraged you to keep track of your captor’s movements and to look out for an opportunity to escape. But she hadn’t seen any guards since she’d been dumped down that chute, and surely the scene that had arisen over her arrival would have brought them? 

“There really aren’t any guards here?” she asked. 

Tom shook his head. “No. The clamp keeps us in line. Or,” he huffed a laugh, “thins out the population, I guess.” 

“Clamp?” Alarm shot through her, though she didn’t know why. 

“Keep your voice down,” Tom cautioned. He pulled away from her and she missed his warmth immediately. He twisted, and raised his hands and dug his fingers into his hair, then angled the back of his head toward her. She saw a glowing red light attached to his scalp and immediately drew away from him. 

“That’s what they call it. It’s some kind of synaptic stimulator. It keeps us all jumpy, antsy.” He turned back toward her. “That’s partly what that fight was about when you got here. It seems to ramp up everyone’s aggression, too. You can’t show any sign of weakness or you’ll be considered a target.” 

Reluctantly, she lifted her hand to the back of her head. Her fingers crept along her skull pushing through her hair, searching for the hard nib. When she found it, she flushed as a wave of anger engulfed her. How dare they! How dare those spineless _petaQs_ do that to them! They’d kidnapped them and ignored their protestations of innocence, then thrown them into this hellhole with a bunch of animals! The clamp was slick, warm, and she imagined it pulsing, like a living, malevolent _thing_. She envisioned wires and relays reaching into her brain, sending signals to her amygdala, ramping up her fear and aggression. The skin around the button itched and she scratched at her scalp reflexively. Her fingernails glided over it’s hard, smooth surface, and she winced slightly as she dug the nail of her index finger into the seam between it and her skin.

“Don’t.” Tom’s hand sailed up past her nose, and he grabbed hold of her wrist and jerked her hand down. 

She braced herself, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin in a challenge, baring her teeth. They both froze. She’d thought he was going to strike her, and her first response was to hit back, to yank her hand out of his and snarl at him to not tell her what to do! Instead, she sucked a breath and studied him for a moment, then nodded. If the fear she’d experienced when confronted with Pit and his men had felt unnatural, this aggression she felt for Tom was, too.

He settled back into the corner, and her body rocked as his legs knocked hers. 

He looked straight ahead toward the curtain, and his voice was flat when he spoke. “Don’t try to remove the clamp. I saw someone dig it out of his head yesterday.” A look of distaste crossed his features. “It killed him.” 

There was more to it, she was sure, but he obviously wasn’t going to tell her. He changed the subject. 

“They interrogated me. And when I wouldn’t confess to the bombings, they dragged me in front of a judge. I didn’t… They told me that you confessed and implicated me. But I know you’d never do that.” 

He turned his head and studied her as he said it, and she shook her head. “Of course not. They told me the same thing about you.” 

Actually, they had used the words, your partner, but hadn’t named either Tom or Harry. Neither had she. She’d asked them where her shipmates were, reminded them that they’d been granted special permission by their government to be on the planet, but that information had swayed them about as much as her protestations of innocence. 

“I didn’t know if they meant you or Harry,” she said. “They didn’t use your name.”

He was looking at her again, watching her. “I was brought before a panel and pronounced guilty. I think they must have drugged me because the next thing I knew, I woke up on a transport, and they shoved me through a hatch. I landed at the bottom of that chute to the _welcoming committee_.”

She was silent for a moment, then asked, “Do you think they actually contacted _Voyager_?” 

Tom shook his head. “If they had, there’s no way the captain would have let it get this far.”

She nodded her agreement, and Tom pulled her close again. She nestled against him as fear and hopelessness welled up inside of her. Her sudden despair was overwhelming. “What are we going to do?” She heard her voice shaking.

Tom rested his cheek on her hair and she felt his jaw move when he spoke. 

“Rule number one, Lieutenant Torres: survive. There’s always hope.” He straightened and looked at her. “We’ll get out of here. Chakotay’s sure as hell not going to abandon you, though he might be tempted to leave me here.” His mouth twitched ruefully. 

She snorted. A year ago, he would have been right about Chakotay’s opinion of him. But not now. “He knows how valuable you are to us, Tom.” She tilted her head and looked at his chin. His growing beard shaded his jaw, and a few strands of her hair were caught in the reddish-golden stubble. “He respects you, you know.” 

The corner of his mouth twitched in a small, self-deprecating smile. “Sure.” 

“Well,” she said, “you’re right about one thing: he won’t leave _me_ here, and I’m pretty sure Captain Janeway will agree to come find me: I am the chief engineer.” Her mouth twitched, and she hoped he knew that she was teasing him. “She might just want you back, too.” 

This time his smile was real. “You don’t know that for sure; she might just decide I’m not worth the trouble. This isn’t my first time in the _slammer_ , remember.” He settled back against her, shifting slightly so she fit more snuggly against him. “Thanks.” 

“Any time.” She sent him a weak smile back, then settled back against the container wall and shut her eyes.

***


	6. Chapter 6

Cold from the metal container seeped into her back, chilling her skin, and she shivered. The silence stretched between them, and she shot a glance at Tom’s face, convinced that he must have fallen asleep. He was still staring blankly ahead at the filthy curtain. She couldn’t take the silence. Instead of relaxing against Tom’s warmth, her body was tense and her hands had curled into fists in her lap. She consciously relaxed them and drew a breath. 

“So…” she began. “Here. And Auckland. That’s twice.” She felt Tom twitch, then relax again when he realized what she was talking about. 

“The _Bradbury,_ transported me to Earth after I was caught,” he said.

She shifted and looked at him. “But that's part of the ‘arrested for being in the Maquis’ thing, so it doesn’t count.”

Tom shook his head. “I was held in their brig so I say it does.” 

“Fine,” she conceded. “I guess that Vidiian mining camp counts, too.”

“Naw,” Tom shook his head. “We were there together so it cancels out.” 

“We’re here together.” 

“Yeah, but I’ve been here two days longer than you.” 

He raised an eyebrow in a challenge and she snorted. She proffered her hand, fingers splayed and ticked them off. “Here, the _Bradbury_ , Auckland. Where else?” 

He paused a moment, and when he spoke his voice was quiet. “Banea makes four.” 

She’d forgotten, though she couldn’t imagine how she had. It had been all over the ship: Tom’s dalliance with the wife of that scientist and his being convicted of Ren’s murder. His gruesome punishment. She knew that there were still some people who didn’t believe that he was innocent. 

She waited a moment, but he didn’t elaborate. He didn’t mention Caldik Prime, either, but maybe he hadn’t been held in the brig then. She’d heard the rumors: how a shuttle full of officers had died due to pilot error. His error. She’d heard all of this after he’d been apprehended, when Chakotay had plucked her from Valo and she’d joined his crew on the _Liberty_. Seska had been more than happy to fill her in when she’d asked what had happened to their new recruit.

But Harry had told her the rest. How he’d lied about it and, after he’d healed from his own injuries, how he’d tried to go on serving his commission on the _Exeter_ , but had eventually confessed to his mistake. The incident had ended his career in Starfleet: not the shuttle crash that had killed his fellow shipmates, but the lie he’d told about his role in it. Or rather, it was the fact that he’d eventually told the truth that had prompted Starfleet to show him the door. If he didn’t want to bring it up now, she couldn’t blame him. 

Her turn. “Alsauri,” she offered. 

At Tom’s confused frown, she explained. “When we beamed down with Neelix for the terrillium. Tuvok and I were held by the Mokra Order.” 

“Right,” he nodded. “Counting here, that’s only two. I’m leading two to one.” He grinned.

“Hannon IV.” He looked skeptical but she pushed it. “We were stuck on that planet. It might as well have been a prison.” 

“Fine,” Tom conceded. “I’m still ahead.” 

“Okay,” she thought for a minute then inhaled sharply as two more times she’d been held against her will came to mind. “That Praylor robot, 3947. He knocked me out and transported me to his ship! Four. And there was the time Harry and I were held inside the computer brain that controlled the Kohl settlement. That makes five.” She shot him a look of triumph.

“Pfffth.” Tom waved off her last two incidents. “Being held against your will for a little while isn’t the same thing as being in jail. And if it were, I present to you: When Seska and Cullah grabbed me when I was with that Talaxian convoy, and when I was stuck in that spacefold after I reached warp ten.” He smiled smugly at her. “I still beat you four to three.” 

She pulled back a bit and assessed at his smug expression. “You really want to win ‘most frequent convict’ don’t you? 

He shrugged. “When you have a natural talent, you should brag about it.” 

She snorted, and settled back against his shoulder. “Fine,” she said. “I concede. No!” She sat up again and smiled widely at him. “When I was seven, I was held in the school office until my mother picked me up.” 

His forehead creased in a frown. “Why?” He sounded trepidatious. 

She knew her smile must look a little cruel. Even after twenty years, she still felt the warm flush of vindication when she thought of it. Payback for a wrong done to her. “There was a kid in my class,” she explained, “Daniel Byrd. He was such a jerk. He used to call me, Miss Turtlehead. God, I hated him!” She was frowning, almost snarling as she thought of all the injustices, all the hurt she’d endured as a child. Then she smiled, remembering. “But I got him back.”

“I’m a little afraid to find out how,” Tom said. His tone had taken on a hint of humour.

“There was a gyro swing in the playground. He was bigger than me, stronger, and he used to push me off whenever I was on it and take my spot. One day, I rigged it to go faster and faster, and when he got on, it spun and spun until it threw him off!”

“B’Elanna!” Tom’s eyes were round with shock, but she saw a laugh tug at his mouth. “Remind me never to take your table in the mess hall. Was he hurt?” 

She shrugged. “Nothing a bone knitter and a dermal regenerator couldn’t fix.” 

Tom stifled a laugh. “What happened?” 

“I was sent to the Principal’s office to wait for my mother. I was suspended for three days, and I had to write an essay on patience and being kind to others.” Her lip curled in remembrance. 

Tom snorted. “Was your mother upset?” 

“No.” She smiled. “I think it was one of the few times she was truly proud of me.” 

“Well,” Tom said quietly, “I guess that makes it a tie.” 

“I guess so.” 

“We make quite a team.”

He shuddered a long, deep breath and closed his eyes, and she settled against his warmth again and tried to rest.

*** 

“We can’t just sit around, waiting to be rescued. There must be some way out of here.”

She was pacing the small hut, impatience rolling off of her and making the air feel electrified. 

“Keep your voice down!” Tom warned. He shook his head as he observed her from his position on the floor. There was barely enough room in the small pod for both of them to sit, let alone stand. “I’ve been all over the cellblock,” he said. “There’s no way out except the way we got in, through the chute. One of the other inmates told me that we’re three hundred metres underground.” 

She stopped her pacing abruptly and swung around to face him, flinging an arm toward the doorway. “So we’ll go up through the chute. Three hundred metres isn’t that far—”

“I told you, there’s no way out!” he snapped. His voice rose with impatience. B’Elanna jerked, and he felt instantly contrite. He had no reason to yell at her, not really. He felt a rush of familiar frustration. He could see that she was on the defensive, her body tensed and ready for battle. That was his fault; the clamp’s fault for making him lose his equilibrium. Of course she wouldn’t want to just sit around and wait to be rescued, she was B’Elanna Torres. 

Tom sighed. “Sorry,” he said. His hand rose and flapped in the air for a few moments before he brought it to the back of his head. He dug through his hair and scratched lightly at his scalp. It didn’t help to alleviate the itching. “Like I said, the clamp makes me edgy.” He heard the slight whine in his voice and scowled.

She softened immediately, but he could tell that she was struggling to let go of her irritation with him. “It’s okay. I understand how you feel.” Her hands settled on her hips, and her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I’m having a hard time too, I guess.” 

“Hadn’t noticed,” he lied. 

She snorted and rolled her eyes, then dropped back down onto the floor beside him. “I can’t just sit around. My muscles are starting to cramp. I need to move.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “You can’t let it get to you. That’s what they want. The best way to fight them is to stay calm; stay in control. We just have to wait—”

“For what? To starve to death?!” Her eyes flashed fire again, then she sighed and let her head drop back against the wall of the pod. 

Tom stilled and closed his eyes. He pressed his lips together and inhaled a lungful of stale air, then slowly exhaled through his mouth. “The chute is electrified. If you try to climb up, you’ll get a shock.” 

“Okay. So we’ll find another way. The air system. I saw those large fans—”

“I already thought of that!” His voice rose again and he clenched his jaw. “The grills are welded on and even if you could pry one off you’d be sliced by the blades.” 

“The sewage lines then. They must have a system for dealing with waste.”

It occurred to him that she might have to use the facilities, such as they were. “There’s a pipe, but believe me, even you couldn’t fit through it.” Even if she wanted to. “Do you need to…”

“I haven’t had enough water to need to.” 

Impatience was back in her tone, and he could tell she was struggling to hold on to her temper. He’d offered her all the water he had. Did she expect him to fight Pit for more? To risk being cut with one of those homemade knives so she could have a full thermos?

“I’m just trying to think of all the possible ways out of here.”

“What,” he scoffed, “you think you can swim through a septic pit?”

“No,” she gritted, “but the waste lines must lead to some sort of processing station or a power generation system. There must be a control centre to operate the air filtration, heat, lights.”

“Do you honestly believe I haven’t thought of that?” he demanded. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two days when I wasn’t worrying myself sick over you and Harry?”

“Do you think I wasn’t worried about you, too?” she snapped. Her chin came up and she stared at him, her jaw rigid, her body tense. She looked like she’d been sucker-punched, and he realized that his words had come out like an accusation. 

“I’m sorry,” Tom said. He suddenly felt drained, exhausted. “You’re right, we need to find a wa—”

They both jumped at the sound of the klaxon, and Tom’s pulse ratcheted up again. 

He shoved away from the wall and stood. “That alarm went off just before you arrived. It could mean Harry’s coming!” He grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet, then pushed past the curtain and out into the corridor. 

She was right behind him.

***


	7. Chapter 7

“New prisoner! New prisoner!” 

The words echoed off the metal walls of the huts, and Tom’s heart leapt. As much as he wanted to find out what had happened to Harry, as much as he needed to see him alive and in one piece, he hoped to hell that he wasn’t about to be dropped down the chute. 

B’Elanna followed him out of their hut and into the crush of bodies, all heading in the same direction. Her hand was clasped tightly in his, her fingers curled around his palm. He pulled her a little bit closer so she was at his back as they were walking, her chest and belly bumping his arm. 

He kept a firm grip on her hand as they wove between the other prisoners. It occurred to him that bringing her back to the atrium at the bottom of the chute might be a bad idea, especially if Pit and his goons showed up. He couldn’t let anything happen to her, couldn’t let Pit get the idea that he could take her from him. Tom had claimed her in front of everyone, and she was his responsibility now. As the ranking officer, he was in charge, and he had to keep her safe until the captain would rescue them. But they had to find out if the alarm meant that Harry had arrived, and there was no way in hell that he was going to leave her alone in their hut even with the knife. 

She’d been too close to him. Sitting huddled together inside the small hut, Tom’s senses had been awash in her: her familiarity, the scent of her hair, the silkiness of her shirt. The warmth of her. Even now, bumped and pushed along by the other prisoners, their noisy excitement mixed with the blare of the klaxon ratcheting up his stress response, his brain refused to stop focusing on the juxtaposition of the softness of her palm in his and the rough calluses on the pads of her fingers as she clung to his hand.

They were forced onward by the others as they pushed and shoved their way toward the open area at the base of the chute. The klaxon stopped abruptly, and Tom halted as a scruffy man lunged in front of him. 

“Food!” someone shouted. 

Not Harry, then. Relief made Tom weak for a moment. He glanced back at B’Elanna and grinned. “Join me for dinner?”

“I hope they remembered the wine,” B’Elanna countered. 

It was her attempt at an apology for their argument in the shelter, and Tom felt a flush of warmth. He wanted to grab onto her, to pull her close and never let her go again. To sink into her, and breathe her in. And it rattled him! He froze and stared at her for a long moment as she watched the sea of other prisoners push their way past them. 

Part of it was the clamp, turning fear and anxiety into lust, but a larger part was his latent attraction to her. He had to acknowledge that, and his very real fear, his dread, that Pit would make good on his promise and kill him to get to her. His fear of what Pit would do to her then, what he would allow to be done to her, was a tangible thing that left a metallic taste in Tom’s mouth. 

His smile disappeared as they rounded the corner and faced a swarm of prisoners gathered around the chute yelling and shoving. He pulled her a little closer. She stiffened, and he wondered if she was about to object. She was independent, self-reliant and in any other situation she could take care of herself, but she didn’t understand how dangerous it was here. This wasn’t like that Vidiian mine where the captives were too exhausted to do anything but sleep when they weren’t working. Here, with absolutely nothing to occupy their time, the inmates resorted to violence as entertainment. Maybe, if she’d been a full-blooded Klingon, she would have the muscle to defend herself against these animals, but maybe not. They would gang up on her, pass her around… He needed to find a second weapon so she could arm herself. 

Just then, the hatch at the top of the chute opened and a bunch of brown, rectangular bars slid down and hit the floor, scattering and sliding across the slick surface. The inmates pushed and shoved, dropping to their hands and knees as they scrambled and fought over the bricks of what Tom assumed were protein bars. This planet’s version of emergency ration bars. 

B’Elanna took a step forward but Tom jerked her back to his side. She rounded on him, and looked pointedly from his hand, still gripping hers tightly, to his face. “If we don’t get one—” 

“Look at them. There isn’t enough.”

Impatience rippled across her features, and he felt her arm stiffen. “Which is why we need to try.” 

She took a step forward, and he tugged on her hand again, pulling her back to his side again. “They’re just looking for an excuse to kill someone over them.” 

“Tom—”

She was cut off by a strangled yelp. The panicked scramble for food had turned into an aggressive shoving match. Men and women were hitting and punching each other as they fought over the bars. One man stomped on the fingers of another, likely breaking them, before he kicked him aside and stole the bar that he had been reaching for. Another climbed up the chute and reached for the closed port, screaming that there had to be more. His body jerked and twitched as he touched a forcefield and an electric current zapped him. He tumbled down the slide to land in a heap on the floor. 

Tom glanced at B’Elanna and backed up a few steps. Neither one of them had been fed in days. He was hungry, his belly pinched and aching. More prisoners were pouring into the clearing from the upper level, and Tom knew there weren’t enough bars for everyone to have one. He glanced around the atrium, letting his eyes roam over the frantic men, studying them, gauging them to try to figure out which ones were weaker, which ones he could force to give up their food. If they followed one back to his shelter… 

His hand dropped to the knife in his belt, but B’Elanna put her hand over his. Their eyes met and she shook her head. 

“You’ll just make us a target.” 

She was right. The wisest course of action was to do nothing. 

The man who had tried to fight him when he’d first arrived had managed to get a bar, and was gleefully shoving the corner of it into his mouth. Anger roared over Tom! The bars were large, as long as his hand and five centimeters thick. They could easily be shared, rationed to feed people for days, maybe weeks. And this scum, this piece of excrement, was about to eat the whole thing right in front of him! 

Rage burned behind his eyes. Tom’s jaw hardened and he took a step toward him. Then Zio was there, sliding behind the man and cleanly slicing his throat open. He relieved him of the bar just before the dead man sank to the ground. B’Elanna gasped, and Tom felt her body jerk. Shock rippled through him, stealing his breath. It was like being drenched in icy water.

Zio glanced toward them. “I don’t think he was going to eat it, do you?” He nodded and walked away with the bar raised to his mouth. 

The crowd soon thinned out and Tom made his way over to the dead man. His throat was gaping open like a second, horrific smile, and blood was starting to pool under his shoulders. Tom crouched down beside him and felt for a pulse but there was nothing. He shook his head. His gut clenched. “I think I’ve lost my appetite,” he said. 

Men who hadn’t been lucky enough to score any food descended on the body and started to strip it, and Tom backed away. The man’s boots and belt were taken, and someone pulled off his pants. The others laughed. 

B’Elanna turned away and walked toward the chute. Tom assumed that she was going to examine it, and was about to caution her about touching the port, but she dropped to her knees on the floor and started to sweep up the crumbs of the bars. He watched as she gathered them into a small pile, then lifted the front corners of her tunic and tied the ends together, creating a little pouch. She scooped up the crumbs and deposited them in the pocket. 

“You’ve been here two days?” she asked. Tom nodded. “And this is the first time you’ve seen food?” 

“Yeah.” He knew what she was about to say.

“These men are acting like they haven’t been fed in a week. There’s no guarantee that the people in charge drop food every couple of days. These crumbs could mean the difference between us surviving until the next drop, or starving.”

She was right, of course. He knelt and started to help her, trying not to think about the dirt and detritus he was gathering up with them. 

“Besides,” she said, reading his thoughts, “if it makes us sick, the Doctor can cure us when we get back to _Voyager_.” 

She glanced at him, and he saw in her eyes that she was willing him to agree. 

“Yeah,” he said. “One shot with a hypo and we’ll be fine.” As he dropped the crumbs into her lap, the edge of his hand brushed her belly, and he felt an almost overwhelming desire to pull her to him and crush her in a hug. He looked around, noting that everyone was wandering away or had settled into small groups, playing tug-of-war and arguing over the ration bars. They had to get out of there and back to the relative safety of their hut before anyone noticed what they were doing.

They gathered as much as they could, as quickly as they could, with B’Elanna nonchalantly picking out bits of filth and debris. He helped to pull her to her feet while she cradled their meager harvest to her belly. The area was deserted now and, thankfully, there was no one around to pay them any attention. 

They settled back into their hut, and B’Elanna carefully pulled her arms out of the sleeves of her tunic and shoved it over her head. Tom helped her place her shirt on the ground. It wasn’t the way he’d pictured helping her to disrobe, or the reason… 

She leaned over and bit the fabric, then tore it straight across and tied the loose ends together forming a little bag to hold their dinner. There were a few larger chunks, broken bits that had either been knocked off of the bars in the melee, or that had broken in transport, and they ate those first. It was chalky on the tongue, dry and crumbly, and it tasted sour, with an underlying flavour of blood. They must be high in iron, Tom thought. He was pretty sure he detected mold in there somewhere, too. 

B’Elanna’s features puckered but she consciously chewed and swallowed. “Don’t tell Neelix, but it might be slightly worse than leola root.” 

Tom smiled. “That’s not saying much,” he said. “You know, this wasn’t exactly how I pictured our first date.”

Her mouth twitched. “First?” she asked. “You’ve imagined more than one?”

“Actually, I thought I’d see how it goes before I imagined a second.” She likely thought he was joking. He wasn’t. He’d idled away many an evening thinking about her. 

She turned her head to look at him and caught him staring. “But you imagined I’d say yes?”

“I hoped.” He shrugged.

She smiled and looked back at the dirty fabric that served as their front door, and he saw her shoulders ease, saw her start to relax. “So, where were you planning on taking me on this imaginary date?”

Tom shifted, then looked away as well and fixed his stare at the corner of their little hut. “There’s a nice French restaurant in Marseilles,” he said. “Down near the docks.” 

“ _Sandrine’s_?” She glanced at him again, and he saw a teasing glint her eyes.

“No. _La Belle Femme_.”

“You’ve been there?” She arched an eyebrow, likely wondering who he’d taken to a fancy French restaurant on Earth. And when. 

“I…” he began. “Yeah. When I was in the Academy. I took my girlfriend for our six month anniversary.”

“How romantic.” Her expression softened. “That was sweet of you.” 

Tom’s mouth twitched. “Yeah.”

She rocked against him, nudging him. “Are you going to tell me her name?”

“Susie,” Tom said. 

He felt a jolt of embarrassment and remorse, and wondered why he’d brought it up. He’d been nineteen and stupidly in love, and had gone out of his way to arrange what he thought was a sweeping, romantic gesture, only to have her smash it. He’d been an idiot. He felt the remembered humiliation anew, the betrayal, like it had just happened. 

The hell with it, he thought, he might as well tell her the rest. “She broke up with me between the entree and dessert.” He glanced at B’Elanna and saw pity in her eyes. For some reason, that only increased his embarrassment and irritation. He looked away.

“What did you do?”

B’Elanna’s soft voice shook him out of the memory, and Tom breathed out a long, slow release of tension. “I finished the bottle of wine and walked the docks for a while. That’s when I first found my way to _Chez Sandrine_ , actually.” 

He turned back to look at her and caught her with her mouth hanging open.

“ _Sandrine’s_ is real?”

Tom huffed. Of course. They all thought he’d made it up. He’d embellished it, sure, added the gigolo and the pool shark, he’d even added Ricky. But Sandrine was as real as he was. 

“Yeah. It’s real.” He couldn’t keep the hurt out of his voice. “Despite what people might think, I don’t have to make up holographic friends,” he snapped.

Her hand landed on his forearm. “I’m sorry. I never thought… Actually, I never thought about it one way or the other,” she admitted. “You’re a talented holoprogrammer, Tom, and you tell such great stories that I just assumed you’d written it.” 

She thought he was a talented programmer? Her comment mollified him somewhat. 

“Tell me about this restaurant. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather take Megan Delaney?”

She was teasing him now, and Tom’s lips twitched. “You know, when we get back, I’m going to tell her what you said about her,” he warned. “She might appear meek and mild but she has one heck of a temper.” 

B’Elanna laughed at that, and warmth spread through him. 

“I think I can take her in a fair fight.” 

“Who says she plays fair?” He raised an eyebrow, conscious that he was flirting with her, and that it felt good. “Are you done?” he asked, motioning to their pouch of crumbs. 

“Ugh.” She made a face and nodded. “It’s just making me thirsty.”

“That’s probably part of their plan,” Tom said. “Starve us, don’t give us water. Then give us just enough food to fight over.”

“Then the food makes us thirsty so we fight over the water,” she finished for him. “If they wanted us dead, they could just dump us here and not feed us at all.” She sighed. “We should save the rest. Ration it.” 

“Not a problem,” Tom assured her. 

She bundled the rest of their dinner in the piece of cloth from her tunic, then turned around and stuffed it into the blankets beside the hidden thermos. 

“Are you going to tell me about the place where we’re going on this date or not?” 

She settled back against him, her head on his shoulder, knees raised, her legs leaning against his. Tom slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her a little closer, for warmth, he told himself. “It’s in the Old Port, right on the water, in the seventh _arrondissement_. There’s a wall of windows and a balcony that looks out over the bay where small yachts and fishing boats are moored.”

“People still fish?” she asked.

“Sure. They sell their catch on the dock. We’d have to go in the evening, for dinner. There’s an historic stone bridge with three arches that crosses the little port, and at night it’s lit up. It’s beautiful.” 

“It sounds nice.” 

It was. Tom shrugged. Outside of the holodeck, he’d likely never see it again. 

“What’s on the menu?” she asked. 

“Are you sure you want me to tell you? I could save it for a surprise.” He glanced at her and saw that her eyes were closed. She was smiling. 

“I want to imagine it.” She opened her eyes and slanted a glance at him. “Maybe it’ll help me forget the taste of those bars.” 

He studied her for a moment. She was obviously tired, with dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was disheveled, and this was the first time in months he’d seen her without that bright red lipstick she preferred. She looked beautiful, he thought; she made him ache. 

She settled back against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and he pulled her a little closer and leaned his cheek against the top of her head. “Well,” he said, “to start, I was thinking oysters in a fennel sauce. Then a bouillabaisse served with toasted crusty bread with garlic, and a white bordeaux.” 

“That sounds amazing.” 

“Oh, we’re not done. Salad Nicoise to cleanse the palate. Maybe a cheese plate if you’re still hungry.” 

She laughed. “I can’t imagine how I would be. What’s for dessert?”

“A country apple tart with caramel sauce and a plate of assorted hand-made _chocolats_.They make one with a lavender-scented ganache that’s incredible.” 

“You had me at the bread,” she smiled. 

He wished he had. He felt a surge of desire for her. A wanting that was primal and desperate, and he tensed. His breath was coming in short bursts, his heart hammering so hard he was certain she must hear it. He straightened and shifted away from her. It was the clamp. It was just the clamp, throwing him off, heightening his emotions. Zio had warned him about this. But, unlike those animals out there, he could control himself.

“We should try to get some rest,” he said. 

“Do you want me to take watch?” she asked. 

“If you’re tired I can—” 

She cut him off, her own irritation rising. “Tom I let you take charge out there because you’ve been here longer. But this isn’t the same as when we were in that Vidiian mine. I’m not that weak, useless human I was then! I’m half-Klingon, remember? I can look after myself.”

She thought she’d been useless? “I know you’re not,” he said. “I’m just… it’s not the same here.” If the inmates had an outlet for their frustration it would be different. Instead, their anger and energy festered until it boiled over into violence. “There are no guards here. We need to be careful, watch our step. I think they want us to kill each other.” 

She put a hand on his arm. “How about we look after each other, then?” 

Tom sighed, and nodded. She was right. She wasn’t that weak, traumatized woman from a year ago. She was tougher, and before they’d been yanked to the Delta Quadrant, she had probably seen more violence and desperation while she was with the Maquis than any of the officers on _Voyager_. She was his partner here, and would likely prove more useful than Harry with his coddled innocence and ingrained Starfleet sense of propriety.

She was studying him, assessing him. “Have you slept since you got here?” she asked. 

“Not really,” he admitted.

“I’ll take first watch since I slept last night. Okay?” 

He noted how carefully she’d modulated her tone, how she was talking to him like he was a sentient photon torpedo that might blow at any second. She was staring at him intently, willing him to agree, and he realized how tired he was and how grateful he was to have her here willing to watch over him while he slept. 

He nodded and eased the knife out of his belt and handed it to her, then deliberately lay down in front of the doorway, facing outward toward the corridor. There was no way he was turning his back to the population of the pit even with her taking watch. Their hut was too short for him to stretch out fully so he had to pull his legs up toward his chest to fit. She settled within the vee created by his thighs and calves, her back to the hut’s wall, her own legs tented over his thighs. She held the knife on her knees. 

“Don’t let me sleep for longer than two hours.”

“Okay.”

He felt the warmth of her, wished he could fold his arms around her, but he wanted her behind him despite her little lecture of a few moments ago. He closed his eyes, and one hand strayed to her booted foot and his fingers casually wrapped around her ankle, securing her against him. Exhaustion pulled at him, and he slept. 

*** 

A scream brought her fully awake with a jolt. She was supposed to be on watch, but she’d been dozing, lulled by Tom’s warmth and the rhythmic sound of his breathing. B’Elanna froze, listening. There was a sound of a scuffle, and a voice raised in a shout of pain. She started to push herself up, but Tom’s fingers clamped around her wrist. She hadn’t realized he was awake. 

“That sounded like a woman,” she said. “We have to help her.” She kept her voice low, suddenly conscious of the lack of privacy in their little hut, and the risk of being overheard. Her mind was filled with images of that brute, Pit, and his men attacking the woman who had screamed. 

“They’re probably just fighting over food,” Tom said, his voice quiet.

“We don’t know that,” she insisted. She wasn’t going to sit idly by while someone was raped or killed. 

Tom rolled onto his back and sat, his long legs effectively boxing her into the corner of their hut. He hadn’t let go of her wrist, and she pulled her arm out of his grasp, but his hands settled on her upper arms, stilling her. 

“It could be a trap. A way to lure people out.”

“We can’t just do nothing,” she insisted.

“Yes, we can.” His fingers brushed the hair off her forehead and he cupped her cheeks so he could look into her eyes. “B’Elanna, none of them would help us.” 

Her surprise at his words stilled her for a moment, then she shoved his hands away from her, disappointment at his indifference making her action more rough than she’d intended it to be. “I can’t believe you’re saying this! What happened to those Starfleet ideals that all of you carry around?”

“Our primary mission is to stay alive long enough to be rescued. And stepping into the middle of a fight isn’t going to accomplish that.” 

HIs voice held an edge to it and B’Elanna’s chin came up. She didn’t need him to tell her what to do, not here. She tried to rise to her knees to move past him, but he pushed her back into the corner of the hut. His legs were overtop of hers now, and his body barred her exit. 

“Listen.” He stilled and cocked his head. It had grown quiet outside. “Whatever it was, it’s already over. B’Elanna, my first night here, there must have been half a dozen fights, arguments. I tried to get people to intervene but do you know what I realized?” 

She stilled and stared at him. He’d lowered his voice to a near whisper, and she found that his calm, even tone was soothing her jangled nerves. Her heart rate was slowing, and despite her anger at his refusal to intervene, she was starting to relax again. 

“This is what they do for entertainment. Instead of helping each other, they beat on each other every chance they get.”

She turned her head and stared at the wall of the pod, and listened. It was still again, no sounds of a scuffle broke the relative quiet. Maybe he was right, maybe the argument had been over something simple: a ration cake or a pair of boots, and once the victor took the item, it was done. 

She let out a long slow sigh. 

He was close to her, his warm breath stirring the hair near her temple, and she wanted to lean into him and rest her head on his shoulder, to pull some of his steady calm inside of herself. Anger was her old enemy, but she wasn’t used to feeling on edge. 

“I guess this place is starting to get to me,” she admitted. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. “And the—” 

“Clamp. I know.” 

He peered at her through the shadows inside their little hut. “You’re feeling it now, aren’t you?” 

She was. She’d thought it was simply a byproduct of her exhaustion as she sat awake listening to the sounds of the prison while Tom slept, as her fear over Harry’s fate and their own coiled in her belly. She’d thought she was weak, and had been chastising herself for acting like a frightened _tika cat_ instead of a warrior when she’d first been dumped down that chute. The relief she’d felt when she’d seen Tom in that crowd had made her physically weak; she’d almost sank to the floor in a little ball of fear. She should have reacted to this situation with hyper awareness, with bravado at the anticipation of danger around every corner. Instead, she’d only wanted to hide. It reminded her of being in that Vidiian mine.

But now she had to admit that the irritation and anxiety that she was experiencing did feel foreign, false. 

“Yes. I’m feeling it,” she admitted. 

She was feeling something else too, in the pit of her belly. A warmth that was spreading to her limbs making her feel languid, needy. A wanting. They were seated very close together in the corner of the shelter, so close that she was almost sitting on his lap. His right hand had dropped close to her hip, and his left was still clamped around her wrist. They were turned toward each other, and were almost in a lover’s embrace. He was so close she felt his breath on her cheek, stirring the hair by her ear. His eyes glittered down at her and she tipped her head up, bringing her mouth closer to his. 

He stilled, simply staring at her for a long moment, and she felt the pull between them. She swayed toward him slightly, but Tom stiffend and let go of her arm. He settled with his back against the wall of the pod, and her body rocked as his legs knocked hers. 

She sat quietly for a few moments. She was penned into the corner, and she should be pissed off at him, but she felt safer here with hard metal walls at her back and one side, and Tom’s warmth to the other. She realized that she was scratching the back of her head and jerked her hand away, then reached and picked up the fallen knife. She examined it for a minute, wondering who had made it, and whether they’d had to use it to kill someone before that person killed them. “Maybe there are other people like us here,” she said, “innocent people who were put in here without a fair trial. If we band together—” 

“That’s what I thought, too, when I first got here. But believe me, no one here is interested in being your friend. The only person you can trust to watch your back is yourself.”

She frowned at him, wondering where his sudden paranoia had sprung from. “And you. I can trust you with my back, right?” Until this moment, she hadn’t questioned that she could. 

Tom drew away and assessed her. “Of course,” he said, but there was an odd note in his voice. “Look, I know your first instinct is to try to help them, to get them to work together. But it’s not like that here. If you show any weakness, they’ll exploit it.” 

She puffed a sigh and nodded. He was right. From what she’d observed, they’d rather kill each other than help each other.

“You should try to sleep now.” 

She glanced around the small metal container. Tom’s long legs took up almost half of it just sitting. “Why don’t we both lie down?” she suggested. 

“I shouldn’t sleep while you do.” 

“So, stay awake, Lieutenant. Plot a course out of the system, in your head.” 

“That might just put me to sleep,” he quipped. One corner of his mouth lifted in a small smile, but he complied with her suggestion and laid down on his back with his feet planted on the floor, his knees bent, and the toes of his boots against the far wall of the crate. 

She handed him the knife, then lay down facing him with her back to the wall and her body curled around his, her knees tucked under his tented legs. He lifted his arm, and she cuddled into him, looping her arm around his waist and resting her head against his chest. Tom’s arm settled around her shoulders, hugging her to him. She instantly felt warmer, calmer. 

It was silly. She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d slept with a man in her bed. It had been awkward, with her waking repeatedly in the night, afraid to shift position or touch him for fear she’d wake him. But she cuddled into Tom, leaning against him and burrowing her nose into his chest, and his arm around her was comforting instead of awkward. 

_I’d feel the same way with Harry or Chakotay_ , she thought. _I would._

***


	8. Chapter 8

“If the Akritirian government thinks I’m just going to abandon my people, they can think again. I’ll tear this quadrant apart before I’ll lose my best pilot and my best engineer!” 

Kathryn Janeway prowled her ready room, pacing from her desk to the railing in front of the upper level lounge area, to just within the sensor of the doorway to the bridge, and back to her desk. Frustrated energy rolled off of her in almost tangible waves, and her expression was one Chakotay had seen before: don’t even _think_ about crossing me in this. He wouldn’t, but it was his role as her first officer to play the foil to her ideas, to suggest a counter argument despite the fact that he agreed with her. 

“Even if we have to break the Prime Directive to do it?” he asked. They weren’t supposed to interfere in the governing of other worlds, even if they had achieved warp capability. 

As far as he knew, Starfleet didn’t hang anyone, not even for breaking General Order Number One. Though she may face an extended stay in the Auckland penal colony, with a few Maquis rebels. The thought made his lips twitch in a smile.

When Tom had been convicted of the murder of that Banean scientist over a year ago, Kathryn had gone to extremes to prove his innocence. The fact that she’d been correct, that Tom had been framed, had been a happy revelation. But, back then, she’d been prepared to accept whatever Tuvok’s investigation uncovered, even if meant leaving Tom in _Voyager’s_ brig for the remainder of their journey home. He suspected she wasn’t so inclined toward following the local government’s rules this time.

The Akritirian defense force had attempted to board them, to take _Voyager_ and everyone aboard into their custody. They’d jumped to warp and run. He knew that Tom and B’Elanna were innocent—the allegations leveled against them were preposterous—but proving that would be a hurdle now that they were a ship of fugitives from Akritirian justice. 

Kathryn turned back to face him, and her brows drew together in a frown that would leave lesser men shaking in the ‘fleet issued boots. “I mean it, Chakotay, we will find them and bring them home, and at this point I don’t care how.”

His eyebrow rose at that comment. He wondered if she’d ever admit that there was a little Maquis rebel inside her, after all. He hastened to reassure her. “Do I look like I’m arguing with you? So, where do we start? They’re not on the planet, do we start scanning the system for human and Klingon lifesigns?”

She nodded. “If they don’t keep inmates on the planet, they must keep them somewhere: a moon, another planet in the system, a space station.” 

He nodded. “I’ll tell Harry to adjust the sensors and extend our scans.”

“Ambassador Liria said something about an organization called Open Sky. Can we monitor the Akritirians’ communications network, see what we can dig up about them?” 

“We can certainly try.” 

Her expression hardened. “Get Neelix up here. Let’s see what he knows about it.” 

Chakotay nodded and turned to head back to the bridge. Her voice made him pause just shy of the door, and turn back to face her.

“We have to get them back, Chakotay, am I clear? Every member of this crew is important to us, valuable. But I’m not sure we’ll make it home without Tom and B’Elanna.”

He nodded, agreeing. Two years ago he would have gladly deposited Tom on some planet and been happy to see the back of him. A year ago, when Tom had pretended to leave the ship in order to route Seska’s spy, he’d been relieved at the idea that Tom had decided to go. But he realized now how short-sighted he’d been. _Voyager_ needed Paris at the helm as much as they needed B’Elanna in the engine room if they had a hope of surviving their seventy year journey. They’d come to a peace, he and Tom Paris, grown of a perhaps grudging mutual respect for the other’s abilities and role on the ship. Every member of the crew was valuable, even little Naomi Wildman for the joy and hope she brought to the crew. 

They’d find them and get them back, and leave this system in their dust. 

*** 

Tom had forced himself to stay awake, listening for signs of trouble. In the back of his mind, like a nagging devil on his shoulder, was the idea that she would abandon him, find someone who could really protect her. Pit or one of the other men who had been here longer, who knew how to survive. She wouldn’t, of course. That was the clamp talking; his rational mind knew that. Even if it were a year ago, back when she and everyone else on _Voyager_ had hated him, she wouldn’t have left him here to rot if for no other reason than because he was Harry’s friend. 

But what if they never got rescued? What if days turned into weeks or months and Janeway never came for them? What if they’d been told they were killed in the bombing, and they’d mourned them and gone on their way, like they had after Pete Durst had been killed? After Bendara, and Darwin, and Bennet, and Hogan, and Suder… What if everyone was already going on with their lives, what then? Surely she wouldn’t stay with him for years in this stinking hell hole? She would find someone better, tougher, stronger. 

Tom sucked a breath and held it for a long moment, then let it out slowly. That was paranoia talking. Grief. Old fears of inadequacy. He glanced down at her arm, wound tightly around his middle, and settled his hand over hers. She was hanging onto him, not letting go. 

He stared through the gaps in the loosely-woven curtain, on the lookout for people approaching their hut, and kept himself occupied by thinking about what he’d do when they were back on _Voyager_. He’d ask her out on a date, a real one like the one they’d talked about, in the holodeck in Marseilles. He planned the dinner, the wine, a walk down by the pier. 

He decided he’d use _Sandrine’s_ as a template and thought about the changes he’d have to make to the programme: he’d have to get rid of the pool table, which was easily done, and change the decor; put in that wall of windows that overlooked the bay. There was a nice restaurant in the Dixon Hill programmes that came preloaded on the Holodeck’s memory, so maybe he could borrow some elements from there. He’d have to pay particular attention to the setting, raise the illumination and program in a beautiful sunset. He’d extend the docks and include facades of the old buildings in case she wanted to go for a walk. He’d have to remember to add the fishing boats and the seagulls fighting over the fish entrails. He wondered if she’d like him to include the smells of the mud and salty sea air, and half-rotted fish. Likely not. It would probably upset her Klingon nose, and it might ruin her appetite. 

Planning their date helped to keep his mind off of _her_. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately, her warmth and softness cuddled up against him. Her hand had slipped from up near his heart to down by his hip, and his cock had surged in interest as her palm glided down his ribs, the pads of her fingers warm through his tee shirt. 

This surge of sexual longing he felt for her wasn’t just the clamp; it was her. If Janeway, or even Kes, had been cuddled up against him, he would have been unmoved. His _little pilot_ would have been snoozing along with her. But he’d been thinking about B’Elanna for months, examining why his pulse jumped when she was in the same room, why he felt a little happier when Harry mentioned that she would be joining them for a meal. She was brilliant and, when they’d worked with Harry on the ill-fated warp ten project, he’d found his own imagination and excitement was sparked by hers. And she was funny, with a wry wit that had made him pause more than once. Like him, she liked poking fun at Harry, her attempt to get him to loosen up and laugh at himself, and she was fiercely loyal to her friends. 

And she was gorgeous. But, according to scuttlebutt, she hadn’t dated anyone since the crews had merged. For a while, back in the beginning, he’d wondered if she was just very secretive, circumspect—the reverse of his headlong pursuit of Meg, but careful observation and an ear to the ground had revealed… nothing. The occasional working meal with members of her staff, a workout with Chakotay in the gym or the holodeck every once in a while, hanging out with Harry and, later, the two of them. Freddy Bristow had been hanging around engineering lately, around _her_ , but as far as he knew there’d not even been a whisper of a romantic encounter with Freddy or anyone else in the crew. And it wasn’t like she logged any alone-time in the holodeck either, he’d checked. 

He bent his neck and stared at her profile, at her compelling cranial ridges, the arch of her cheekbone, her generous mouth, slightly parted as she slept. Light from the gaps in the curtain patterned her face in silver and shadows, and she looked ethereal, angelic. His lips twitched, imagining how she would react to that little snippet of poetical nonsense.

He exhaled slowly, conscious of his increased heart rate and the heat he felt on his skin. His hand clenched where it rested on her back, his fingers spasming as they jerked across the fabric of her shirt. To be honest, the weight of her head on his shoulder was making his arm numb, not the safest situation in the event they were attacked tonight. 

He shifted carefully, lifting his arm from around her and sliding her head off of his chest. She murmured in her sleep and woke up. 

“Tom?” 

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.” 

She stirred, and her hand slid across his belly as she braced against his hip and pushed herself up to sitting. She raised a hand and shoved her hair out of her eyes. “I was dreaming that I was on _Voyager_ and you and Harry were in here.” 

“I’ll bet you were glad to have us out of your hair,” he joked. 

She frowned at him, her features slack with sleep. “That’s not funny,” she said. 

“You’re right.” He shook his head. “It’s not.” 

She looked hesitant for a moment, then glanced away from him and stretched. “How long did I sleep?” 

“Right through dessert,” he quipped. At her quizzical look, he said, “A couple of hours.” 

“Your turn again.” Before he could protest, she picked up the knife. “I’m fine now. I feel okay. I’ll wake you if anything happens.” 

She wasn’t making any move to climb out from behind him. His raised knees were propped against her chest and she was sitting within the tent of his legs, her left arm resting along his shin, her hand on his knee. Her right hand was holding the knife down by her side, near his hip. She didn’t look like she was planning to go anywhere. 

She was rested, trained, competent. And her mother’s Klingon blood likely gave her more stamina than he had. He had to stop treating her like one of Tuvok’s orchids. Hell, even Kes had a spine of durosteel under her sweet, delicate exterior. B’Elanna’s exterior wasn’t sweet or delicate. She could look after herself and, despite what the clamp was trying to make him believe, she would look after him, too. He folded his arms across his chest and released a sigh as he closed his eyes. Her hand slid down his leg and her fingers wrapped around his calf as she settled her weight against him. The warmth from her palm spread over his skin, and his legs shifted to rest against her chest. Tom exhaled slowly. He’d just relax, he promised himself. Relax and doze and think about how they could get out of here. But his body felt heavy, then weightless, and he stopped thinking altogether.

***


	9. Chapter 9

“It’s a bad idea. We should stick together.”

Irritation rippled through her. During the year and a half she’d spent as a member of Chakotay’s Maquis cell she’d been in many places reminiscent of this one: rough, dirty shanty towns on border planets filled with desperate people. It had opened her eyes. She’d discovered that desperate people often felt they had nothing to lose, that their anger made them erratic. Violent. It made them behave in ways they normally wouldn’t. She’d learned to look after herself then, and she could damn well look after herself now! 

“Look,” she lowered her voice from a low roar and strived for patience. Kahless, Tom Paris had a knack for making her want to punch something! “I saw some women in the crowd when I was first dumped down that chute. I want to talk to them, see if I can reason with them. Maybe they’d be willing to cooperate with us to find a way—” 

“Fine.” he cut her off. “I’m coming with you.”

“I really think I’d have a better chance alone,” she snipped. “I don’t need you to be my bodyguard, I’m fully capable of looking after myself.”

Tom shook his head, frustration pinching his mouth and the skin around his eyes. “We’re safer together,” he insisted.

It was probably true, but she suspected that his presence would make those women rebuff any overtures she made towards them. And she wanted to prove to him that she could look after herself. “I told you last night, my Klingon DNA will make me a match for anyone who tries to hassle me.” 

She was tempted to lay him out on the floor to prove her point! 

“Things are different here,” Tom stressed. “I’d say the same thing if Harry was here with me instead of you.” He stabbed a finger toward the corridor beyond their small metal hut. “They’re not like us. What do you think will happen if you find these women? Do you really believe they’ll help us?” His tone was thick with condescension. “They’re not going to work together. These people don’t cooperate, B’Elanna, they prey on each other!”

“We have to at least consider the idea that some of them were falsely convicted, like we were,” she argued. “We can’t be the only ones.” It was easy to fall into the mindset that she and Tom were the only innocent people here, but after the way they’d been treated by the Akritirian police, she doubted it. And if others were innocent, maybe they could be convinced that they would all be better off if they cooperated, rather than allow themselves to be pitted against each other. 

He shook his head again, and his voice took on a tone of finality. “It’s too risky. I’m the senior officer here, and I’m ordering you to stay with me.” 

There was real anger in his eyes now, but instead of fueling her own temper, she felt the urge to laugh. She snorted. “It may have escaped your notice, _sir_ , but we’re not on _Voyager_ anymore and the Federation is a hell of a long way from here.” Her chin jerked up, and her tone took on a dismissive drawl. “Neither one of us was ever really Starfleet material, Tom. Go ahead and order me to stay. I’m going.” 

He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes glittering, frustration evident in the set of his jaw. Finally, he pulled the knife from his belt and handed it to her. “Then take this. I’m going to check out the chute.” Without another word, he turned and pushed the curtain aside, and stepped out into the corridor. 

**

She didn’t understand. How could she? She’d never been in charge of an away mission that had gone so horribly wrong; one where people under her watch had— 

Tom took the turn into the main corridor too quickly and slammed his shoulder into the corner of one of the tall metal containers. Pain radiated along his collarbone and down his arm, numbing his fingers. He stifled a curse but kept walking, his long legs putting distance between him and B’Elanna. She hadn’t killed three of her friends because of her fucked-up feelings of youthful arrogance. She wasn’t the reason Pete was dead, though really, part of him lived on. Parts. 

She hadn’t seen herself in that mine, weak and getting sicker by the hour… 

He shouldn’t have given in to her demand to go off alone, but their argument was getting louder, and he was afraid they were making too much noise. It was either leave or start screaming at her, and they’d already attracted enough attention. 

He glared at the other prisoners as he passed, noting that there weren’t any women among them. Well, if B’Elanna wanted to go find some new friends and talk about the latest prison fashions and hairstyles, more power to her! He stopped dead in his tracks and inhaled a deep breath. When had he become such an asshole? When he’d given in to his fear, he supposed. He’d allowed it to override his good judgement. The only way they could get out of here was if they worked together, the two of them. She was half-Klingon for fuck’s sake; she was probably better at hand-to-hand combat than he was. She had every right to be pissed off at him when he attempted to coddle her, but he had to make sure that nothing happened to her.

It was a nice idea, to enlist like-minded inmates, but he doubted they could trust them. He didn’t want his future to hinge on one of these animals not selling them out to the authorities. Or each other. He couldn’t take that risk. And he couldn’t live with himself if she got hurt; couldn’t face Harry. 

Zio was sitting on the stairs near the chute when Tom reached the atrium. Tom didn’t see him at first, and walked far too close to him for safety. If Zio had been one of Pit’s men, Tom might be dead now. He stopped mid-stride and lifted his chin, tried to appear larger than he was. Tried to make it look like he’d sought him out. Tom nodded an acknowledgement. 

Zio was seated on the fifth step up from the floor chewing on a ration cake, likely the same one he’d stolen from the man he’d killed earlier. He nodded back and swallowed, as if he were afraid that Tom might snatch the food from his mouth. He was almost tempted. Tom’s stomach clenched and, despite the lingering bad taste on his tongue from the crumbs he and B’Elanna had scrounged, Tom’s mouth watered at the idea of food. 

“Tell me what you know about the chute,” Tom said without preamble. 

Zio tilted his head and stared at him. 

“You said earlier that we’re three hundred metres underground, how do you know that? I was drugged when they threw me down, weren’t you?” 

Zio shrugged. “I’ve been here a long time, Tom Paris, it’s difficult to remember.” He took another bite of the bar, chewing lazily this time. 

“That man who was zapped by the forcefield when they dropped the food bars, how badly was he hurt? Was he burned?”

Zio simply stared at him, and Tom sighed. He tried one more time. “What about a power source? It must have one that controls the forcefield and the iris opening. There must be a way to short it out.” 

“If there is, no one has succeeded yet. Are you in a hurry to die, Tom Paris? Who will look after your woman when the pulse fries your heart?” He tapped his chest. “When the clamp scrambles your brain?” A tap to his forehead this time. 

“Funny,” Tom muttered, “we were just discussing that.” He couldn’t help the angry set of his mouth when he remembered their argument. 

Zio sniffed. He deliberately rewrapped the ration cake and slipped it into his pocket without offering any to Tom. Tom was tempted to ask him what he wanted for it, but he suspected he knew the answer already. The clothing off his back. 

Zio stood, a slight smile playing around his mouth. “Where is your woman? Has she found someone smarter to help her escape? Someone stronger to protect her?” He tapped his head again. “I know the secret. I almost have it all figured out. I’m writing it down in my manifesto.” He looked triumphant. 

Tom frowned, confusion mingling with irritation at the man’s rambling. “Just tell me where the power source for the chute is!” His voice rose and his teeth clicked together as he shut his mouth. He couldn’t start screaming at people every time he felt his patience start to fray. “Look, friend, I just nee—” 

“I’m not your friend,” Zio corrected. He stood and stepped down the final few stairs until he was standing directly in front of Tom; he resisted the temptation to take a step back. “There are no friends here. Only bargains,” Zio finished. 

Tom watched as he sauntered away, noting that he took a corridor to the left of the one that led to the _quarters_ Tom shared with B’Elanna. A sudden, swift longing struck him, making his gut clench: him and B’Elanna, back on _Voyager_ , really together, sharing quarters. Waking with her in the morning, getting ready for shift, knowing that no matter how hectic their day, even if they couldn’t meet for lunch or dinner, he would see her in the evening when she came home… 

He shook his head. It was a dream, and not a particularly rosy one. They weren’t even dating, barely friends let alone at a stage where they would share quarters! And though he’d dated seriously while he was in the Academy, he’d discovered in the years since that he liked his independence. The idea of being tied down to one person was unsettling. But he wouldn’t mind taking her to dinner on the holodeck, maybe going sailing or skiing. Maybe just a hike in Algonquin Park, or a weekend in the cabin that his family owned. He wouldn’t mind exploring this attraction between them. He was certain that it wasn’t one-sided. 

He realized that his eyes had drifted upward and he was staring toward the second level. He glanced back over his shoulder at the chute, his eyes traveling toward the ceiling and the housing that enclosed the top of the slide and the hatch that led to the outside. He turned again and looked up to the second floor of the prison. He stepped onto the first stair; might as well check it out. 

**

B’Elanna carefully slipped the knife blade inside the waistband of her leggings and looped the fabric of her tunic up so the handle was exposed. If she needed it, she wanted to be able to access it immediately and not be caught fumbling in her clothing. 

The corridor was quiet when she left their hut, and there was no trace of Tom; he’d probably stomped off in a huff, his longer legs taking him out of sight quickly. Now that she thought about it, it had been a mistake to cuddle up to him for warmth. He probably saw her as his responsibility now; as weak and useless. Maybe it was the fact that she only came up to his chin? It pissed her off: his belief that because he was bigger than her, that meant he was stronger and more capable. It didn’t seem to occur to him that he might need _her_ protection! Max had been like that too, trying to remake her into some simpering, needy nitwit who couldn’t defend herself from a strong wind. She’d like to see Tom pull that Alpha Male crap on Janeway! Janeway might be flying the banner of scientific exploration but, at its heart, Starfleet was a military institution, complete with the Rah Rah jingoism and the inherent need to show superiority. And Starfleet officers were trained to believe that they knew better than everyone else what was best for them. Well, she could make her own decisions! And she could take care of herself. She’d been doing it for a long time! 

She realized that her shoulders were up around her ears and she consciously lowered them, rolled them back and down and straightened her spine. Her appearance in the corridor without Tom seemed to have drawn the attention of their fellow prisoners, and she glowered at the rough men she passed while she travelled the twisting turns of the various corridors. She’d like to see them try! She kept her hand on her knife just in case any of them needed reminding that she wouldn’t go quietly. 

She turned a corner and found herself in the wide atrium-like area where prisoners and food were deposited when they came down the chute. Despite what he’d told her of his intentions, Tom wasn’t there; it was empty. Corridors branched off from the room, winding between stacked metal crates, and she wondered if he’d chosen to head down one of them to explore. She pushed aside the thought that Pit and his men had grabbed him and dragged him away. She would have heard. He would have fought back.

There was a staircase leading up to a second level, and she stood at the base of the steps and squinted upward. It did remind her of the upper level engineering deck back on _Voyager_ , but instead of workstations lit with displays, all she could see were more shadows and the dull gleam of metal walls. She assumed that there were more makeshift quarters back there, somewhere. 

Her eyes locked with those of a scruffy-looking man sitting on the mezzanine above the open space near the chute. His arms were propped on the railing and his legs dangled down into the air above her head. She let her gaze rest on him long enough for him to know that she’d seen him, then continued her scan of the upper level. She didn’t see any women up there and she moved on, taking a corridor that branched to the right of the one that led to the container that she shared with Tom. _Home sweet home_. 

“Your man, Tom Paris. He looked angry when I saw him. Did you have a disagreement?” 

She recognized the person who had slit the throat of that other man earlier and taken his ration bar. Zio. He stepped out from between two huts and leaned a shoulder against one while he observed her. She tensed, and swallowed the urge to back up a step. 

“Why would you think that?” She cocked her head and tried to appear casual. 

“You’re alone. After the way he fought for you, I thought he’d keep you with him.” 

“He knows I can look after myself,” she said. Her hand was back on the hilt of her knife. 

“Then he’s a fool. New prisoners don’t last long here,” Zio stated. His tone was flat, belying the warning in his words. “Not on their own.” 

“But as you pointed out, I’m not on my own.”

He smiled. “All of us are alone.” 

She wasn’t in the mood for a philosophical debate. She shifted her weight and flicked a glance behind her. The corner of his mouth came up in a smile. “Look,” she said, “I noticed some women here, when I first arrived. There was one with long blonde hair. Do you know who I mean?” 

“Yes.”

Frustration flared and she pressed her lips together. Was he acting this way on purpose? “Another woman was with her,” B’Elanna said. “With dark hair. She wore a piece of cloth wrapped around her chest, like this.” She made an X over her front, from shoulder to opposite hip. 

“I know them.” 

“Good. Do you think you could tell me where I might find them?” She raised an eyebrow, her words clipped, her throat tight from holding her temper in check. Chakotay had once said something about getting more flies with honey than vinegar, but he’d never bothered to explain why anyone would want the damn flies to begin with. The insects on Kessik, where she’d grown up, had been bad enough. 

Zio looked her up and down, and her hands balled into fists. She assessed him, too, sizing up areas where she would land the first punch if he attacked her, plotting the second hit, the third. Her back teeth ground together.

Zio pushed away from the container wall and straightened. He moved slowly, like he wasn’t affected by his surroundings at all, but she knew better; she’d watched him slit that man’s throat without a second thought. He raised an arm and gestured behind her. “That way. Go back out to the main area and take the farthest passage. They’re at the end, but they won’t let you get that far.” 

“I’ll take my chances,” she snapped. She took a step backward, then another, and he chuckled. “You don’t need to fear me, Tom Paris’ wife. I’m not interested in harming you.” 

“My name is B’Elanna,” she spat. She wasn’t about to be identified as Tom’s anything! 

He shrugged and raised a hand to tap the back of his head, indicating the clamp. “I could show you how to fight it. I could tell you my secret.” 

“Thanks. I’m not interested.” She backed up a few more steps then turned and strode back the way she’d come, leaving him once more leaning against the metal wall of a container, staring after her. There was something about the expression in the man’s eyes that made her uneasy. She didn’t trust him. Despite his assurances, keeping her distance sounded like a good idea.

No one else spoke to her as she moved toward the farthest corridor, but she could feel them watching. Someone made a hooting sound, followed by guttural laughter, and she heard the sounds of roughhousing: a muffled thump, the hollow bang of a body hitting one of the large containers. She drew her shoulders back, lifted her chin and tried to project an air of ‘not worth the risk’. She refused to be intimidated by them. She turned a corner and found herself facing a long hallway, the end hidden in shadows. She’d barely taken ten steps before she was challenged. 

“What do you want?” 

“ _nuqneH_ to you, too,” she muttered. 

A tall woman stood at the end of the hallway behind what looked like some sort of _ad hoc_ metal gate. B’Elanna stepped closer and confirmed that she was the same blonde woman she’d seen in the atrium earlier. “Are you in charge here?” she asked. 

“Why do you want to know? What business do you have with us?” 

Not in charge then, B’Elanna decided. She must be the muscle, a guard, maybe. “I have a proposition for you. My… husband and I—” 

“We don’t need any men here.” The woman scowled. 

“You aren’t Akritirian,” a new voice noted. “Neither is your man.” 

The blonde turned and addressed the newcomer. “We can’t trust them, Morra.”

“Quiet, Ferryn. I want to hear what she has to say.”

B’Elanna looked into the shadows beyond the entryway. The second woman stepped into a shaft of light and B’Elanna recognized her as the one she’d been hoping to find. Older and stalkier than the woman guarding the gate, with streaks of grey visible in her long dark hair, she had an air of authority. There was something about her, maybe the self-assured look in her eyes, that reminded B’Elanna of her mother. 

“No, we’re not Akritirian,” B’Elanna confirmed. “He’s human, and I’m Klingon.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but she wasn’t about to go into the minute details of her family tree with these strangers. “My name is B’Elanna Torres. He’s Tom Paris. We come from another star system, very far away from here. We’re members of a federation of hundreds of worlds.” 

If B’Elanna had thought this Morra might be more welcoming than the guard, she was wrong. The older woman caught the eyes of the blonde, then she tilted her head and studied B’Elanna. “We don’t see many offworlders,” she stated.

“I think you’ll find we’re not very different from you,” B’Elanna said. “Our ship was visiting Akritiri.” She paused, unsure how much to tell them. They had likely heard Tom’s boast about being members of Open Sky, the Akritirian rebel group. Would they welcome them if they believed that they were responsible for the bombing that had killed all those people, or shun them? “If you let Tom and me stay with you, inside your compound, we can help you defend it. We’re officers in our Federation’s Starfleet. We’ve been trained to fight.”

“I saw how you fight. You’re good.” An older man stepped out from behind Morra. “And I heard him claim that you're with Open Sky, but I don’t don’t recognize you. I don’t believe you.” He shook his head.

“You’re Open Sky?!” Surprise brought her up straight and stiff. These people were the reason she and Tom were here! Anger, swift and sharp, coursed through her. Their organization had planted that bomb, and she and Tom had been blamed. 

“Quiet, Nym,” Morra shook her head at the man.

B’Elanna realized that this might be the way to win their trust, and bit back her anger. At least it was worth a try. “We heard about your fight with the Akritirian government,” she said. “Our Federation is free; we can mix with anyone we choose, travel wherever we want.” It was a slight bending of the truth, but fuck the Prime Directive! She had no intention of abiding by Akritirian law.

“Tom and I, we sympathized with you,” B’Elanna continued. “I know what it’s like to see an injustice and want to fix it.” This, at least, was the truth. Having been raised in the Federation, with far more freedoms than the Bajorans, for instance, B’Elanna did have sympathy for any people who were oppressed by their leaders. “I know what it’s like to… to try to live under someone else’s rules that you feel are unfair.”

Morra addressed B’Elanna. “You’re welcome to join us but I can’t allow your man in here.”

Hope flared inside her, then died. “But Tom’s no threat to you!” she insisted. Frustration lent an edge to her voice. 

“He’s young, strong. He’s male. The clamp will make him a threat, eventually.” Morra followed B’Elanna’s gaze to Nym, and laughed. “He’s _my_ husband. I know him. I don’t know yours, but from the way he treats you, I’d think you’d be happy to get away from him.”

“Tom’s not really like that.” B’Elanna shook her head. She wanted to tell her that what she’d witnessed when Tom had claimed her and taken her from Pit was all an act, but she refrained. 

“When you’ve had enough, come back,” Morra said. She turned and started to walk away, then threw over her shoulder. “Before he sells you to someone for a new pair of boots.”

“Wait!” B’Elanna moved closer to the metal gate and the blonde guard, Ferryn, thrust her weapon at her. She backed up a step. The blade looked sharp. B’Elanna thought she could take it from her, but that would hardly make her look like someone they should trust. “You’re right,” she called. “Tom is strong. He can help defend your compound.” 

Morra ignored her and continued walking away, Nym falling into step behind her. Anger surged inside B’Elanna, hot and pure, and she wanted nothing more than to grab the woman and shake her until she listened to her. Until she agreed to let them in. She blew a breath. Giving in to her anger wouldn’t exactly win any of them over to her side. Chakotay’s face came to mind again, and she tamped down her temper with effort. 

“You should go back to your man,” Ferryn advised her. “It’s not smart to wander around here alone.”

B’Elanna clenched her jaw. She gave the woman a short, sharp nod, then turned on her heel and left.


	10. Chapter 10

“What took you so long?” B’Elanna snarled, “I’ve been back at least half an hour.”

Tom paused in the doorway of their little hut and looked her up and down. He slowly eased inside and reached back to jerk the curtain closed behind him. She fought her impatience, biting down the desire to snap at him again. 

She was pissed off, jumpy; she felt like there were a hundred little sand fleas running around under her skin, and she wasn’t in the mood for him to act like a smartass. Tom had a habit of slowing right down when you wanted him to hurry, to pull back and observe before he opened his mouth and let go with just the right sarcastic retort guaranteed to piss you off even more. And right now she wasn’t in the mood. In fact, if he dared make one of his little witticisms, she might just shove him out of the questionable safety of their hut back into the general population.

“Well, where have you been?”

She realized that she sounded shrill, like a demanding girlfriend, but she didn’t give a shit. He had no right to make her worry like that! She’d made it back to their shelter later than she’d intended, expecting him to rail at her about being late, to make her feel guilty about making him worry. He hadn’t been there. 

She’d waited as time stretched and he still didn’t appear. She’d been uneasy, frustration about his absence gradually turning into genuine concern, then to a feeling that was just this side of panicked certainty that Tom was bleeding to death on the cold metal floor while she sat in their tiny hut and waited for him with a filthy blanket over her knees. Her brain had conjured all the ways he could have been injured or killed. She saw him gasping for air, begging for help that didn’t come as the other inmates stripped his body of his clothing. She’d spent the last twenty minutes listening for sounds of a scuffle, certain that Pit or one of his henchmen had cornered Tom and hurt him, and she’d chastised herself for insisting that they split up, not knowing if he’d ever return. 

And she’d been afraid that Pit would come for her and she wouldn’t be able to defend herself against him and his brutes despite her big words to Tom. 

She’d waited, but he still hadn’t come, and now she wondered if he’d done it on purpose to illustrate some stupid point about the dangers of getting separated. He was just standing there watching her, staring at her as if she was the one who had to explain herself to him! She huffed an impatient breath and scrambled to her feet to face him head on. “Say something!” she demanded. “Where were you?” 

“You’re feeling it,” he said. His features were bland, his voice quiet. Even. 

She stilled. Her hand had crept up to the back of her head and she’d been idly scratching at the skin of her scalp, around the clamp. The clamp. Of course. She sighed and whipped her hand down, immediately regretting the way she’d behaved, recognizing how she had let her imagination spiral into grotesque fantasy. He was here, and he was fine. Whole. 

“I guess so,” she admitted. 

“It gets worse over time,” Tom said. “You have to fight it.” 

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Irritation was back, and with it frustration at his know-it-all attitude. “Just because you graduated from the Academy, Tom, doesn’t mean you know more about being in—” 

She snapped her mouth closed and looked away, drew in a long, slow breath of air. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just that it’s so hard…” 

“I know.” His hand cupped her shoulder and she looked up into his eyes. He’d softened, and he looked genuinely remorseful. “I know it is,” he said. “We need to think about something else. Think about what we’ll do when we get back to _Voyager_.” He smiled. 

Was this his attempt at an apology? His attempt to distract her? Her first instinct was to be irritated that he was trying to brush off their argument, but then she realized that she’d been the only person arguing. 

“That’s easy,” she said, playing along. “I’m going to take a long, hot shower.” His eyes warmed, and she wondered if it was a good idea to put that mental picture in his head. “No. I know! I’ll oversee a warp core diagnostic.” He smiled at that, and she forced a grin in response. “What will you do?” she asked. “Don’t tell me, you’ll head straight for the mess hall. I’m sure Neelix will make us a special meal to celebrate our return.” 

“Special, right,” he agreed. “Pleeka rind casserole? Leeola root mash?” 

“Actually, I was hoping that the captain will take pity on us and give us some extra replicator rations, but to be honest both sound good right now,” she admitted. 

“I know,” Tom agreed. “After I eat, I think I might sleep for a week.”

“After you file your report with Chakotay.” Her voice took on a sing-song quality, and she raised an eyebrow and smiled.

Tom’s eyes squinted shut and he groaned. “And one for Tuvok,” he said. “And one for the captain.” 

“Oh, and the Doctor will probably want to study us for a few days,” B’Elanna added.

“Of course, how could I forget him? Actually,” Tom said quietly, “all I really want is to be able to lock a door behind me.” 

She studied him for a moment, then her gaze shifted to their curtain doorway, and she nodded. “Me too,” she admitted. “And, to be honest, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of these clamps. Maybe I can figure out how it works.” 

Tom smiled. “Speaking of engineering, I got you a present while I was out.” 

Her eyebrows climbed and she asked hopefully, “Something to eat?” 

“Nooo…” Tom drawled, “Sorry. I didn’t discover any grocers, shower facilities, or doors to the outside. But I did find this.” From behind his back he produced a length of pipe with a power switch on one end and circuitry inside. “I know some guys bring flowers…”

B’Elanna took the pipe from him, ignoring both the wiseass comment about the flowers and his self-satisfied grin. She examined it, first giving the exterior a cursory scan before turning it on end and peering inside. 

“I thought you might be able to rig a device to short out the forcefield and open the hatch at the top of the chute.” 

“Maybe,” she conceded. “I mean, it’s worth a try. But what am I supposed to use as a power source?” 

“Doesn’t copper wire and iron make an electromagnet? If we can get our hands on some copper wire—” 

“Sure.” She snapped as a residual flare of frustration rippled through her. “I saw a few spools in the shop just off the common area! I’ll just go over there and buy some with the pocket money they gave us when they dumped us here.” 

She felt the urge to pace, wanted to break something. She glowered at him and immediately regretted her outburst when she recognized a matching flash of temper in his eyes. She blew a breath, pushing away her misdirected anger. Her palm fluttered on his shoulder, her fingers clenching into a fist as she gave him a conciliatory pat. “I’m sorry. I… it’s my damned Klingon temper again, I guess. It’s hard enough to keep it in check at the best of times.” 

“I know.” 

He was staring at her, his neck bent at an awkward angle in the too-short hut, but his expression had lost its edge, and his eyes relayed his understanding. He did know, she realized. And he hadn’t backed away from her or backed down while she’d been yelling at him. Harry would. Even Chakotay had, a few times. Her temper had sent most people scurrying away, but never Tom. “I’m glad you’re here with me,” she said. Then she realized how that sounded. “I mean—” 

“Yeah, I know,” he nodded. “I feel the same way. Well,” he admitted with a grin, “if I had a choice, I might have picked Larson or Ayala but…” 

She smiled again as the last of her tension left her, and she felt an almost overpowering desire to grab him and hug him, to fall into him and let his heat and strength, his solidity, hold her up. Before she could give in to the impulse, she turned away and sat down on the blanket. “I’ll see what I can do with it,” she said, referring to the length of pipe. “But unless we find some kind of insulating material, I wouldn’t want to be holding onto it when we try to short out that force field.”

He squatted down across from her. “You have to make it work. That chute is the only way to the surface,” Tom pressed. “I walked all over our little community and polled its fine citizens. No one has ever found a way out.” 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “All I found were metal walls.” She thought about Morra’s group and hesitated, debating whether or not to tell him about them.

The silence stretched for a few moments before Tom broke it. “For the record, I like your temper,” he said, quietly. 

She glanced up at him. He was scratching at the back of his head, his fingers digging into his hair, fluffling it. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

She knew she should tell him about Morra and the others, but something held her back. She’d wanted to trust them, but there was nothing stopping them from slitting their throats and stripping their bodies like that man in the pit yesterday that Zio had killed. And besides, they’d refused to take Tom, and she would never abandon him, she realized. Even if Janeway never found them. Even if they died here, she wouldn’t leave him on his own. She couldn’t live with herself if she did.

She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.

*****

Neelix fidgeted in his seat, not quite able to shake the feeling that he’d done something wrong; that he’d led his friends into the maw of a monster. When they’d come close to Akritirian space, he’d warned the captain that they were less than friendly to outsiders, but Janeway, with her talent for diplomacy, had smoothed their way across the border and not only got the authorities to agree to _Voyager’s_ traversing their space, but to some trading and a few days of shore leave for the crew on top of that. It was true that he thought she was a marvel, commanding a ship of wonders, but he’d never believed that she could get the zenophobic, isolationist Akritri to agree to more than a military escort across their territory. Upon reflection, that’s exactly what they should have requested. 

“There’s no indication that they followed us,” Chakotay said. 

“I guess they’re more interested in getting rid of us than finding out the truth,” the captain replied. She was standing at the viewport looking out at the stars. 

They had stopped ten light years outside the Akritirian border, and Janeway had called her senior staff together hoping they could come up with a way to locate and rescue Tom and B’Elanna. Tom, with his reputation as a former grifter and bad boy, hadn’t always been Neelix’ favourite person. In fact, back when the crews had first been thrown together, Tom’s obvious amorous interest in Kes had sparked a decided dislike in the usually amiable cook and local guide. But ever since they’d gone on that away mission together and rescued that baby whatever-it-was, their relationship had taken a dramatic turn. Tom had assured him that, despite his affection for Kes, he would never act on his attraction because he respected their relationship, and respected Neelix too much to make a play for his girlfriend. 

It had been a peek into Tom’s character that Neelix hadn’t been aware existed, and he’d stopped listening to the rumors and speculation about him that still, a year and a half after the Caretaker had brought them here, floated through the ship. Neelix believed that Tom’s gregarious nature was an asset, especially when he supplied him with information about many of the crewmembers’ likes and dislikes, the things they missed about home, even obscure little details about the lives they’d left behind. Neelix prided himself on being particularly sensitive to the interests of others, and he did his best to make each of them feel special and worthy of his individual attention. Tom had told him about the captain’s dog, Holly? Jolly? and Harry’s longing for his mother’s apple pie. He’d passed on Ensign Jenkin’s love of ice cream with caramel sauce, and that Ensign Baytart had once said that he wished he had his unicycle with him. And Neelix had surprised Ahni Jetal with a birthday party just last month. He wouldn’t even have known it was her birthday without Tom’s sleuthing. 

He considered him a friend now; a good friend. Him and B’Elanna both. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that their detention was his fault. He should have been more insistent. He should have made Captain Janeway understand how untrustworthy the Akritirians are. Well, he would remedy that right now!

“We've got to go back for Tom and B’Elanna,” Neelix said as soon as everyone had arrived in the briefing room. He didn’t even wait for Tuvok to sit down. “We can’t just leave them there!”

Janeway turned from the viewport and paced back toward the conference table. She eyed him with an unrelenting stare. “Believe me, Neelix, I have no intention of leaving them behind.”

“We have no information as to their whereabouts. And if we return to Akritirian space, we are sure to encounter further hostilities,” Tuvok noted.

“They’re no match for us,” Harry cut in, leaning across the table toward Tuvok. “ _Voyager_ can out-maneuver them, out-gun them—”

“A few ships, yes, but not their entire fleet,” Janeway said. “Tuvok is right. I’m not ready to start a war with Akritria just yet. Instead, let's concentrate on proving B’Elanna and Tom's innocence. Then they’ll have to let them go.”

“But how do we do that?” Neelix asked. “They won’t let us investigate or speak to any witnesses.”

“What do we know about that organization, Open Sky?” Janeway asked. 

She was looking pointedly at Neelix, and he swallowed his anxiety. “Just a few rumours, mostly. I’ve never spoken directly to anyone who knows of them first-hand. They’re a political organization, grass-roots as Tom would say, made up mostly of students, young people. They want what their name suggests: a more open society, and freedom to travel, trade, leave the system. They want to mix with other species the way we do, but the government strictly controls interactions with other races. They held a few protests and the members were rounded up and then released. I didn’t hear any rumours of a detention centre. From what I heard, they were all talk; they weren’t violent. ” 

“Well, they are now,” Janeway stated. 

“Ambassador Liria told us the explosive used in that bomb was trilithium based. If we find the source of that trilithium, it may lead us to the real bombers,” Chakotay suggested. 

“Our long range scans indicate that Liria was correct,” Tuvok added. “There is no trilithium in this sector.”

“What about paralithium?” Harry suggested. “It's used as a fuel for some ion based propulsion systems, and it can be converted into trilithium.” 

Janeway nodded. “Review our sensor logs of ships entering and leaving Akritirian space during the time we were in orbit. If anybody's using paralithium for fuel, I want to find out who they are and where they went.”

“They couldn’t have gone far without the proper permits,” Neelix said. “They’re likely still inside the borders.” 

“Well, I suppose we can thank the Akritirian government for something,” Chakotay replied.

*****

He had gone out again and, to her obvious surprise, had found a length of copper wire. “Here,” he said, handing it to her without preamble. 

“You missed your calling,” she joked, “instead of joining Starfleet, you should have lived the life of a scavenger and trader, like Neelix.”

Tom smiled as he settled on the blanket and watched her work, his back against the opposite wall of the container. “Neelix has turned into a pampered house cat since he joined our crew,” he said. “I’m not sure his years spent as a wanderer count anymore.”

Her chin jerked up and she looked directly at him for the first time since he’d returned. “You think what we did before we ended up on _Voyager_ doesn’t count? You think we should just forget about it?”

He frowned, wondering what line of convoluted thinking had prompted that comment. “No, I didn’t say that. I just meant that being on _Voyager_ has given us all a second chance. A chance to turn our lives around.” 

“Some of us never wanted a ‘second chance’. Some of us would have been perfectly happy to stay where we were before the Caretaker hauled us halfway across the galaxy.” 

He didn’t think she was angry, there was none of the famous Torres Temper on display, but that comment held a hint of a challenge. Her little flare of opinion wasn’t the result of the clamp or, at least, not entirely, and he wondered what was going on inside her head. 

“Actually, now that I think about it, I agree with you,” he conceded. “If I hadn’t agreed to take Janeway through the Badlands, I’d be _out_ of prison by now.” He waved a hand toward the corridor outside their hut to illustrate that he was, instead, incarcerated _again_. “I’d have served my sentence and been released. But, look how it turned out.” He tried to make the remark sound flippant, tried to inject a little humour into it. 

Her gaze slid away from him. “Yeah. I suppose so.” 

“I know,” Tom nodded. “I’m such a fine example of a Starfleet officer and gentleman that I’m sure you forgot that I was in the Maquis.” His mouth twisted in a sardonic smile.

“Actually,” she admitted quietly, “I do forget.” 

He’d only met her a few times while he was with Chakotay’s cell, and while she may not remember, she’d made an impression on him. He hadn’t forgotten her, even while he was serving his time in the correction facility in Auckland. And when Janeway had come to him with her proposition, he’d wondered if B’Elanna was still with the Maquis. He’d assumed, if she were, she’d be safe, hidden away in a shipyard on some planet near the Badlands. It hurt a little to think that she hadn’t thought of him at all. 

She’d gone back to fiddling with the wire, and was working it back and forth attempting to snap it. 

“I really had no idea where Chakotay’s ship was, you know that, right?” Tom said. “I only agreed to help Captain Janeway to get out of that penal colony for a while.” 

She’d tensed, but she was listening. 

“The fact that we were caught by the Caretaker, too…” He shook his head. “It was a coincidence. I mean, really, we have no idea if both ships were even in the same spatial grid when we were taken. The Caretaker probably moved his beam—” 

“It’s okay, Tom. No one even thinks about that anymore.” She’d addressed him, but her words were directed toward the pipe. 

“There were lots of Maquis in that facility who Janeway could have asked to help her find Chakotay,” Tom said. “Lots of people who felt like they’d been used, tricked by Eddington and Cal Hudson. She came to me because she knew my father.” There was no response, and Tom tried again. “B’Elanna, I had no idea you were even still with them.” He squatted down on his haunches and touched her arm, and she glanced up at him. 

“I said it’s okay. Actually,” she paused and her eyes took on a faraway look, “if it weren’t for you and _Voyager_ , I would have died in that underground bunker with the Ocampa. I guess, in a way, you saved me.” She shrugged. “And here we are, in an underground prison with the very real possibility that we’ll die here.” Her generous mouth twisted.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” Tom vowed. “B’Elanna, look at me.” He reached out and touched her knee, and she glanced up, but her eyes didn’t meet his. “We’re going to get out of here,” he said. “And I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

She did look at him then, and her features pulled into a sneer. “You can’t promise that, Tom.” 

While Tom had dozed, she’d spent the morning working on the pipe, first disassembling it and stripping it down to its component parts, then putting it back together, seemingly wholly absorbed in her task. He’d left her with her various bits and pieces, and the knife for her protection, and he’d gone out with a mental list of the things she needed to make the pipe work. He hadn’t wanted to leave her, but it was easier that way, he drew less attention when he moved around the prison alone. 

He’d gone back to the second level hoping he could acquire more pieces of circuitry from the man who had given him the pipe earlier, or at least persuade him to show him where he’d found it. _Given_ was an exaggeration. The mezzanine had been empty when Tom had climbed the stairs, but he’d soon encountered another prisoner as he explored the twisting passageways that housed more inmates. The man had appeared from nowhere, brandishing the pipe and shouting at Tom in a series of short, guttural huffs of breath. Tom could read the mania in his eyes, and had slowed his steps and held his hands out as he spoke softly to the man in an attempt to calm him. But he had screamed in fear and thrown the pipe at Tom before running off down a narrow corridor. 

Other inmates had appeared, lured by the commotion, and Tom had had a chance to discreetly question them about guards and possible methods of escape. They weren’t exactly forthcoming, but none had seen a guard since they’d got there, and all agreed that the only way to _escape_ the prison was by dying. 

At least, when he’d gone out again, he’d found the wire dangling from a broken housing plate beside one of the large air circulation fans. 

B’Elanna was still working on the pipe, but she’d been less than forthcoming with her plans for it. Usually, when she had some new engineering idea, she and Harry could hardly talk about anything else. But she wasn’t talking now, not really. In fact, it felt like she was avoiding talking to him. 

He hadn’t wanted to leave her again. She hadn’t told him where she’d gone this morning after he’d stupidly stormed out of their hut and left her alone. She’d met with someone, he was sure of it. There was something she wasn’t telling him. Some secret. He’d been rolling it around in his head as he observed her from his corner of their very small hut, noting how she was avoiding looking at him. Even when he’d spoken to her and she’d answered, her eyes didn’t go farther than his chin. Had she met with Zio? Pit? Made some deal that would keep herself safe? Some agreement? If she had, why hadn’t she told him? What was she planning? 

A cold certainty settled in his belly and his features hardened. “What are you keeping from me?” he finally asked.

She looked up from her task of winding the copper wire around the metal core, her gaze sliding off of him. “Nothing.” 

Her voice was breathy and low, and Tom felt his temper stretch and snap. “Yes, you are,” he insisted. “I know when someone is lying to me. I’m a fucking expert at it!” 

“What are you talking about?” Her brows drew together in a frown that accentuated her forehead ridges. 

He realized that he’d been shouting and lowered his voice. “You tell me,” he said. A small part of him knew this was the clamp talking, but he didn’t care. The clamp simply gave him permission to think about what he knew was true! To _say_ what he knew was true. “When you went out on your own this morning, who did you talk to? Who did you meet up with?” 

He saw it then, a flash of guilt in her eyes before she schooled her expression to neutral. She had met with someone! It was so obvious to him now. She had never liked him, not really, she’d only put up with him because of Harry. She saw him as a burden, someone who would eventually get her killed. She was planning to align herself with someone else. Someone tougher. Stronger. It must be Pit; he was the obvious force in this hellhole. She was going to build the pipe and take it to Pit in hopes that he would be able to help her escape! 

“He’s been here for months,” he said, continuing his private thoughts aloud. “What makes you think he’d be better than I would at figuring out how to get out of here?” 

She looked up finally, her features pulling into a frown. She was a good actor, but he could tell that she was faking her confusion. “What? Who?”

“Pit!” He spat the name, her rejection of him—her betrayal—lending venom to his tone. After all he’d done! He’d fed her, kept her safe, he’d rescued her from the very man she was planning to run to! “Don’t you know what he has planned for you? Don’t you know what he’ll do to you if he gets his hands on you?”

“Tom!” She laid the pipe aside and scooted over to his side of the hut. Her forehead was creased with confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He turned his face away, refusing to look at her, refusing to listen to any more of her lies. She’d always disliked him, he knew that. First Seska, and then Chakotay had poured poison in her ear, telling lies about him. He knew that she and Harry only tolerated having him around, that they only let him in on their lunches and holodeck time because they felt sorry for him. 

And all that time he’d been fascinated by her, wanting to get closer to her, hoping that she liked him, even a little. Fuck, he’d even been hoping that in their time here he could impress her enough for her to agree to have that dinner with him when they got back to the ship. Fat fucking chance. 

“Just go, then!” he barked. “I don’t care.” His jaw firmed and his teeth ground together in disappointment and grief. 

“Tom, stop. I’m not going anywhere! Not without you.” She wrapped one hand around his wrist, and the other cupped his cheek. She pulled at his chin until he was looking her in the eye. “What’s in your head, it’s not real. I would never leave you here. Anywhere. You know that.” 

Her eyes searched his, then she leaned forward, burying her face in his shoulder. “You have to believe me.” Her words were muffled by his clothing and he felt her warm breath puff onto his skin. 

Tom closed his eyes and held onto her. He couldn’t tell anymore what was real and what was the clamp. Was she using him, lulling him into a false sense of security? She must know how he felt about her, she’d probably laughed with Harry or Chakotay about it: what a sucker he was, what a loser. Tom Paris, the ship’s Lothario, falling for her. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I’ll leave you alone. You and Harry can… can do what you want.”

Her head popped up and she stared at him again. “Harry? What are you talking about?” 

He closed his eyes and held his body stiff and straight as he answered; he couldn’t look at her while he did this. “I know what’s going on. I know what you two have been doing. But you don’t have to pretend anymore.” 

She sat up and her hands landed on his shoulders, her fingers curling into tight fists. “Tom, what are you saying?” 

“That you care about me! That you’re my friends! You can stop pretending.” 

He might as well stay here, he thought. Without them, he really didn’t have anyone on _Voyager_. He’d been so stupid. And he’d missed the opportunity to insinuate himself with other people. Everyone on the ship was friendly to him, but none of them were his friends. Maybe Neelix, but he liked everyone so he didn’t really count, did he?

“This is insane!” B’Elanna smacked his chest with the flat of her palms, rocking him. She gripped his shoulders and gave him a shake. “You’re talking nonsense.” She dipped her head in an attempt to catch his eye. “Harry and I _are_ your friends. We care about you. And I’d never leave you here.” She shook her head. 

He couldn’t stand it, her sweet words, her sweet warmth so close that she was almost in his lap, making him want her even more despite the fact that he knew the truth. “You’re the one who’s lying!” He grabbed her upper arms and dragged her closer. “But I know the truth,” he spat. “Stop denying it.”

He let her go abruptly and raised his chin. “It was all a game to you two, wasn’t it? To make me think you cared, to see how far it would go. You wanted me to fall—” He shut his mouth, cutting off what he was about to say. He turned away from her and brought his hands up to cover his eyes. He couldn’t look at her anymore. 

She reached for his wrists. “No,” she said sharply, denying it. “That’s not true. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” She tugged at his hands, pulling them away from his face, and pressed her forehead to his. “You have to fight it, Tom. Nothing that you’re thinking is real; it’s the clamp, like you said.”

Her warm breath puffed against his face as she spoke; the hard, boney ridge on her forehead dug into his smooth one. The discomfort was minor, a reminder that she wasn’t a dream, that this place wasn’t a dream. 

His hands had dropped to her waist and he squeezed, pulling her closer, clinging on to her. Doubt crept over him, freezing his muscles, making his hands clench against the soft fabric of B’Elanna’s shirt. She was warm and solid, the rhythm of her breathing matched to his. Her warmth spread through him. “I don’t know what’s real anymore,” he admitted. 

She sat up, and reached for his hand and clasped it in her own. “We’re real, Tom. And _Voyager_ is real. And they’re coming for us.”

He nodded. 

“We’re getting out of here, together.” Her hand squeezed his again. “We just have to hang on until they find us,” she said. 

***


	11. Chapter 11

_The mattress was lumpy, and he was positive that he could feel a hard, metal spring dig into his hip through the mattress. He rolled over, giving his hip a break but already regretting the bruise that he was sure was now forming on his lower spine. He knew he should sleep, get what rest he could before the guards came back and forced them to get up and go back to work, but it was noisy in the bunkhouse, the sounds of the other inmates talking and moaning and crying sabotaging his attempt to find peace._

_“I heard what you said about me.”_

_Tom lifted his arm from over his eyes and peered into the gloom beyond his bunk. He recognized her shape, silhouetted against the far wall, the glow from one of the dim overhead lights picking out the red highlights in her hair._

_“Meg?” Surprise froze him for a moment, and he lay stiff and still, simply staring in her direction. What was she doing here? When had she been captured? He slowly sat upright as she came closer._

_”Just wait until_ Voyager _shows up,” she said. “I’ll tell Chakotay; everyone will know who you really are!” She was looming over him, her face in shadow, her long hair wild as it fell over her shoulders._

_”I didn’t mean it,” Tom explained. “I only played along to make them believe that I was dangerous.” But B’Elanna was the one who had called Meg a…_

_He reached for her, and she took a step back, into a shaft of light. Her face was revealed, and Tom drew back in horror. B’Elanna’s human face had been grafted onto Meg’s. A puckered, red scar ran from her right temple to above the bridge of her nose. It dipped down along the curve of her left eye socket and cheekbone. Her right eye was a rich dark brown: B’Elanna’s, while her left was blue. “No…” he breathed._

_She glared at him, her revulsion obvious in her expression. “You disgust me!”_ she spat. 

_”You’re useless,” a voice chimed in. “I’d still be alive if you weren’t in charge of this mission.”_

_Tom’s head swivelled around and he caught his breath as Pete Durst stepped out of the shadows. Shock froze him. The Talaxian who slept on the bunk over his popped his head over the side of his mattress. “He has a point, you know,” he observed. “People die if they rely on you, Paris._

_”No.” Tom shook his head in denial. “No, that’s not true!”_

Tom jerked awake with a gasp, his body stiff with tension. He was seated wedged into the corner of the hut, with his knees bent, and his legs drawn up and tilted toward the side of the container. Cold burned his knee and outer thigh where they rested against the unyielding metal wall. It seeped into the left side of his body, chilling his arm and shoulder as well. He straightened up, and hissed as he lowered his legs and his stiff knees twinged in protest. The muscles in his thighs and calves spasmed from being in one position for too long. 

He glanced at B’Elanna. She was sleeping peacefully, wrapped in the blanket and curled up on the floor of the hut with the long wall at her back. He shifted and stretched his long legs out in front of her, a barrier between her and the doorway. 

He was supposed to be on watch but exhaustion had caught up to him and he’d fallen asleep. Not exactly sweet dreams. His hand still clutched the knife, and he placed it carefully on the floor beside his thigh, then ran his fingers through his hair, scrubbed at his face with his palms. His heart rate was slowing, and his respirations evening out. His gaze drifted back to B’Elanna. Light bled through holes in the curtain, and she was painted in light and shadow, and he watched the blanket shift minutely as her chest rose and fell with her gentle breathing.

At least he hadn’t woken her. He closed his eyes and sighed. Despite what she’d told him earlier, he was a little surprised to see her still here. Then again, she was tired too. Her reassurances warred with what he knew was the truth: sooner or later, she would leave him on his own. She was probably planning to wait until she was on watch to slip away, to make it easier. And she would try to take the pipe with her. It was their only means of escape; she wouldn’t leave it behind. 

He wouldn’t allow it. 

She’d told him earlier that she needed more material to make it work, but he knew she was lying. She’d been fiddling with it all afternoon, and he was certain that she’d made more progress than she was letting on. He caught the glint of light on metal, and located the pipe nestled in the blanket behind her, between her back and the container wall. He shifted forward, then stretched out a long arm, being careful not to make a sound as he pulled the pipe toward him until he could wrap his fingers around it and pluck it from the floor. He paused, but she didn’t stir.

He placed the pipe on his lap in a shaft of light, then turned a shoulder to her and slowly started to unscrew its cap. They thought he was stupid; thought he didn’t know anything about engineering or mechanics, but Janeway had sent him from the bridge to assist with repairs many times. Hell, he’d got the conn responding after a systems failure twice!

He glanced over his shoulder to confirm that B’Elanna was still sleeping, then pulled the metal core from the pipe being careful not to disturb the attached circuitry. He’d find out just how far along she was. He’d confirm that she was lying to him, then he’d confront her with the proof of those lies! 

He wouldn’t give her the chance to betray him again. He’d have to stay awake from now on, he decided. He couldn’t afford to let her out of his sight. 

*****

“Harry, what are you doing here so late?”

Harry started out of his musings and smiled at Kes as she slid into the chair opposite him. She had a mug of hot tea in her hand—chamomile, from the scent—and she placed it on the mess table and wrapped her fingers around it. “The captain ordered me off the bridge,” Harry answered. 

“That’s usually a sign that she thinks you need to get some rest,” Kes said. “And you are still officially on sick leave,” she noted. 

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “I’d be better if I could help in the search for Tom and B’Elanna.” 

She placed a small, warm hand over his, and squeezed. “The captain will find them, you know that.” 

“If they’re still alive.” Harry shook his head. “Every hour that goes by…” He glanced past her shoulder and gazed out the large viewports at the end of the mess hall. “If only I hadn’t stopped in that stupid store. If I hadn’t been late.” 

He and B’Elanna had been on their way to meet Tom at the town square when they’d happened upon a shop that sold musical instruments. A musician himself, he’d been intrigued by the idea of investigating Akritirian musical culture, and B’Elanna had encouraged him to go inside to check it out. She’d told him to take all the time he wanted: she would meet Tom at the cafe, and they’d wait for him to join them before they ordered lunch. 

He had assured her that he’d only be a few minutes, but he’d gotten caught up in a conversation with the proprietor and time had slipped away from him while he tried to play a few instruments and perused the recordings. He’d bought a copy of a symphony thinking that, with luck, he could convert the memory crystal to download onto the holodeck’s memory buffers. He’d planned on convincing Tom to help him create a performance hall, and to program a holographic orchestra. He was sure he could master one of the parts, then he’d give a performance for the crew. 

If he’d just gone with her to meet Tom! If he’d been there, he might have seen something suspicious or maybe convinced both of them to accompany him back to the shopping district. 

“If you’d been with them, you would have been more seriously injured than you were. And you might be missing now, too.” Kes squeezed his hand again. 

His mouth lifted in a smile, but a shake of his head belied it. “I hate just sitting here; I feel useless, like I’m doing nothing.”

“You could try to sleep,” she suggested. “If you’re rested, you might think of something to help with the search.” 

“No,” Harry replied firmly. 

“In that case, I’ll wait with you.” 

She smiled again, and Harry turned his hand over, palm up, and held hers. “Thanks,” he said.

*****

The sharp edge of the tube sliced into his flesh and he hissed and dropped the pipe as he brought his thumb to his mouth. The loud _clang_ of metal striking metal echoed through the small pod. There was a taste of blood on his tongue.

“Tom…?” B’Elanna rolled onto her back and pushed herself up onto her elbows. She squinted at him through the gloom. “What’s going… What are you doing?!” Her eyes rounded as she saw the pipe and the bits of wiring and circuitry on the floor of the hut beside him. She shoved herself up and lunged forward. “What have you done?”

He pulled the pipe behind his back. “Nothing!” he snapped. 

“Oh, God, you’ve ruined it!” 

She made another grab for the pipe and Tom shoved her away from him with a bit more force than he’d intended. She overbalanced and fell backward onto the blanket, her back hitting the floor, and the back of her head striking the container wall with a dull _thunk_. She stared at him like he’d lost his mind. 

It was a good act, but he wasn’t fooled. His jaw set, and he expelled a hot breath through his nose. “I know what I’m doing,” he said. “You think I’m stupid but I’m not.” 

Irritation flickered in her eyes as she pulled herself upright. “What the hell’s got into you?”

“I know what you were going to do,” he answered. “You were almost finished with the pipe!” It was an accusation. “Who did you meet yesterday?”

She shook her head. “No one.” 

That flash of guilt was in her eyes again, that she couldn’t hide. “Liar!” he shouted. He drew a breath, jerked his chin up in wounded pride. “When I went out again, he came here, didn’t he? Did you show him the pipe?” 

“Not this again!” Her voice rose, her own anger lending a sharp edge to her words.

“You think you can fool me, but you can’t,” Tom said, shaking his head. She moved toward him, and he raised his knees as a physical barrier between them. “You’ll see, B’Elanna.” He dug behind his back for the pipe, then held it aloft between them. “He’ll take it, and he’ll use it to get away, and he’ll leave you here!” 

“You’re out of your mind. I told you, I’d never go anywhere near Pit and his—”

“Take it then,” Tom yelled, all the hurt and disappointment he’d been feeling for the last few hours in his voice.

He threw the pipe toward her, intending only to get rid of it, the tangible reminder of her deceit and betrayal. The pipe smacked her on the shoulder, and she grunted in pain and raised a hand to the spot. The pipe bounced to the floor of the hut, a piece of circuitry falling out and snapping in half as it hit the unyielding metal. Her head jerked up, and he saw the fury written on her face. She bared her teeth, and he had a glimpse of pure rage in her eyes before she lunged at him with a roar. 

Pain radiated through his head as her hand clipped his ear, and his jaw clenched with it. She smacked the flat of her fists against his chest. Her hands bunched in his shirt and she shook him, banging his head against the wall of the container. He registered pain spreading from the back of his head, down his spine, and shock held him frozen for a moment then his own anger roared up to meet hers. He grasped her wrists, squeezing as he pulled her hands from his shoulders and hauled her upright.

“He’s only strong because of the men he has with him,” Tom ground out. His breath came in short, sharp bursts. “Don’t you understand,” he begged, “He’ll take it from you and leave you behind.” He stared into her eyes and saw something in her change. Heat flared there, and her expression softened. His gaze dropped to her mouth; her lips were slack as she drew an uneven breath. 

She shook her head. “We’ll get out of here together, Tom.” 

If only it were true. He was still gripping her wrists tightly, and her fingers flexed, but she didn’t try to pull away. Instead, she swayed against him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and her hair tickled his chin. Her breath mingled with his. Lust slammed into him. He needed her. He needed her to want him. “Tell me you won’t leave me here,” he whispered.

“I won’t,” she said. “I won’t ever leave you.”

Her voice shivered down his spine. He closed his eyes, wishing it were true. His hands dropped to her hips; his fingers spasmed and his fingertips slid on the silky fabric of her tunic. She pressed herself closer to him, tilting her head to the side, exposing her throat and the sensitive skin under her ear. 

Her hands were fisted in his shirt. Her eyes had closed, and her full lips were parted. He could hear her breath coming faster, feel her chest expand and contract as she breathed. He nuzzled her hair, skimmed his lips along her throat. She groaned when he scraped his teeth over a tendon in her neck. 

She leaned forward and ground down onto his rapidly stiffening cock, dotting open-mouthed kisses on his ear, his temple. Tom moaned and clutched at her, pulling her closer. His hands slipped under the fabric of her shirt, his fingers touching soft, warm skin. He kissed her bare shoulder where the sleeve had torn at the seam. 

Her breath in his ear was fast and shallow, as she scraped her teeth over the stubble on his chin, then nudged his cheek with her nose and pressed warm, moist kisses on his jaw. She breathed his name, like she was asking for something from him, and he turned his head and kissed her mouth. Her lips were soft and yielding: a sweet, insistant pressure on his. He deepened the kiss, pressing harder, tangling the fingers of one hand in her hair to anchor her to him. Her hands slipped over his shirt leaving a burning hot trail on his upper chest; her fingertips were incongruously cool as they traced his neck and jaw. 

Pleasure sparked through him, tightening his belly and making his skin sing. He petted her, trailing a hand from the top of her head to her cheek, her shoulder, and down her back. Her hair felt silky and cool in contrast to her heated skin. She was warm like velvet, soft and yielding. He cupped her waist with both hands, skimmed his fingertips up her ribs to just below her beasts, slid his palm around to her back. He tugged her even closer and she parted her legs, her inner thighs slidding along his hips, her hot centre scorching him through their clothing. He slid one palm down along her spine. She shuddered and jerked when his fingertips encountered faint spinal ridges, like the ones on her forehead, on her lower back. His breath caught. He hadn’t known; he’d had no idea. It was like a secret that she kept, that she’d allowed him to discover. His cock surged and he thrust up against her heat involuntarily, needing to be closer to her. 

Her hands had slid back to his shoulders, and he felt her fingernails digging into his flesh through the thin fabric of his shirt. He shuddered as pleasure almost like pain shot from the back of his neck to his lower back. She pushed at his shirt, shoving it off his shoulders, and he leaned into her as she tugged it down his arms and off to pool on the floor of their hut. Her hands glided over his arms and upper chest, then up his throat to cup his face as she kissed him. 

He found her waist again and gripped her tighter, parted his lips and traced hers with the tip of his tongue. She tasted sweet, and he wanted to devour her, taste all of her, to stamp his mark on her so everyone knew she was his! He groaned, the sound coming from deep in his gut, and his hands spasmed on her back, fingertips digging into her yielding flesh. She opened her mouth to him, inviting him in; he traced the silky inner flesh of her lips, the slick smoothness of her teeth. 

Her hands dropped to his lap and scrabbled at his tee shirt, grabbing at the hem and shoving it past his belly. She scratched at his chest, her fingernails scoring his pecs and leaving an electric trail sparking on his skin. He felt like he’d run into a forcefield, been zapped by a phaser on stun. His skin tingled, his muscles tightened. His fingers found their way into the waistband of her slacks, her heat and sleekly muscled body encouraging him to push and shove at the fabric, pull at the cloth that was a barrier to his discovering all of her warm, soft skin.

She ground down on his cock, thrusting her hips forward, her body shuddering against his. She grabbed for his hand and pulled it up under her shirt until he was cupping her breast, the warm weight of her filling his palm. His thumb found her nipple through the fabric of her brassier, and he brushed it lightly, pressed harder, rubbed. She growled quietly into his ear.

“B’Elanna.” He breathed her name against her shoulder, tilted his head and kissed her throat, behind her ear, her cheek, nose, eyelid. He scattered kisses on her face, like phaser fire on wide-dispersal, hoping they’d land. She dragged her mouth across his jaw, settled her lips on his and pressed him against the wall of the hut. She was tugging on his tee shirt again, pulling it up his chest, her fists knocking against his arms encouraging him to raise them above his head. The neckline caught on his chin, and he had to stop kissing her, had to let go of her, in order to raise his arms and let her tug the shirt over his head and off. He laughed as she threw it behind her. 

She explored his bare shoulders, her palms hot and firm on his skin as they moulded his muscles. The cold metal of the hut bit into his bare back and made him shiver. Or maybe it was her? She scratched her nails through the hair on his chest, caressing him, exploring him. He wanted her now. Wanted inside of her, wanted to pound into her so she knew she was his! He slid his fingers inside the waistband of her slacks, brushing the point of her hips, reaching for the sweet curve of her ass. He hauled her hard against his groin. 

She dropped her hands to his lap and yanked on his belt. Her fingers tugged on the stiff leather strap, fumbling slightly as they pulled it out of the buckle and released the prong. Her hand slipped over his trousers, pressing on the prominent bulge in his lap, and Tom shuddered as pleasure rippled through him. His ass rose up off the floor of the hut as he thrust into her hand. Her fingers scrabbled at the zip of his trousers, and he leaned forward to kiss her neck and the enchanting hollow at the base of her throat where her collarbones dipped. He traced it with his tongue, kissed lower, shoving at the modest neckline of her tunic with his nose, trying to reach the sweet rise of her breasts. 

“Please, Tom,” she breathed. She was still working on the zipper, her fingers digging into the fabric. He pushed her off of his lap, and she rolled, knocking into the wall of the hut with a startled expression that changed into a grin when she saw that he’d unfastened his pants himself. She leaned over him and helped him to tug his trousers over his hips, then reached into his briefs and freed him. 

He hissed as she stroked him. His eyes closed, and his teeth came together with a _click_ as his jaw tensed against the wave of pleasure that washed over him. He reached for her, tugging on her own slacks, needing to feel her soft, bare skin against his own. She quickly released the fastener and slipped her pants down her hips and off her legs, taking her underwear with them. 

She glowed in the filtered light that leaked through their ratty curtain. Her skin was dotted with silver and shadow. Her thighs, visible below the torn edge of her shirt, were round and smooth. He drank her in: the sweet curve of her hips and belly, the dusky shadow between her thighs, her firmly muscled legs. 

She moved quickly, straddling him, settling on his lap and sliding along the length of his cock, pressing her belly to his. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and she rubbed her nose against his jaw. He heard the rasp of his beard on her cheek, felt her warm breath puff against his temple. Her slick heat on his cock made him desperate to be inside her, and he gripped her hips tightly.

She rose up and he almost said her name, almost begged her to come back to him, then she was sliding down onto him, taking him inside her, and the breath left his lungs. He couldn’t say a word. She was hot and slick and wet, tight and perfect, and he tensed as pleasure crawled from his belly to his spine, tightening his gut and pulling his ass cheeks together. 

He could feel her shuddering just slightly, her body quaking as she sat perched on his lap. She folded herself around him, clutching at his shoulders, rocking her hips forward. Her soft thighs slid over his, her breasts were crushed to his chest, and he wished he’d stripped her, removed all of her clothing so he could worship her breasts with his hands and his mouth as he thrust into her. He slid his palms up her body taking her shirt with them, bunching it under her chin as he revealed her breasts. They were high and firm in her bra, the black fabric an erotic contrast to her tan skin. He bent his head and kissed the sweet curve of flesh above the lacy fabric, licked the skin hidden in her cleavage. 

“Please. Please, Tom, more.” Her words were a soft puff of warm air on his skin.

He gripped the sweet softness of her hips and thrust upwards, rocking her gently. She swayed toward him, her forehead knocking against his, noses bumping, her held breath released in a gasp. She cupped his cheek and kissed him, nibbling her way from the point of his jaw to his mouth, her tongue exploring, seeking as she whined her pleasure against his lips.

He slid his hands over her thighs, traced the curve of her hips, the dip of her waist, explored her ribs. He reached downward until he cupped the firm globes of her ass in his palms. He gripped her, and thrust harder into her, moving faster, jerking upward while she slammed down onto him. 

Fire shot along his nerve endings; his skin tingled. It had never been this good before, he’d never felt like this before. She was everything: food for his empty belly, air for his lungs. He only needed her. He devoured her, one hand cupping the back of her head, fingers wound in the silky softness of her hair as he kissed her until they were both breathless. His other hand jerked under her slipping shirt, shoving her bra upward and filling his hand with her breast. He squeezed her, pinched her nipple, and she moaned against his mouth, leaning into his hand, slamming her groin onto his.

He couldn’t take much more: the heat of her; her mouth on his; warm, moist breath. Pleasure coiling in his lower back, his balls tightening, aching for that relief. His hand dropped to where they were joined, and his fingers fumbled in her coarse dark hair. Her hand closed on his, guiding him, helping him, her fingers placing his on her nub and encouraging him to move in gentle circles. 

“Oh, yes,” she breathed.

She was twitching, her body jerking. Her forehead had dropped to rest on his shoulder, and he cupped the back of her head. They moved faster, both gasping, panting, their hips jerking as they lost their rhythm. He was so close. Then she shuddered, and she groaned long and drawn out, her voice rising, her inner muscles clamping onto his cock, rippling with her pleasure. He buried his face in her throat as he came hard and fast, his orgasm slamming into him like a wave, rocking him, taking his breath. He froze, tensed, then his breath left his lungs with a whoosh as light and colour exploded behind his eyes. He twitched, shuddered, his hands spasming where he’d clung to her thighs.

She was draped, boneless, over him, and he hung on to her. He slid one hand around her back and hugged her tight to his chest. He raised the other and threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head. Strands of her hair slipped through his fingers, and he played with its silky softness, then his finger bumped something hard and slick on her scalp: the clamp. 

He tensed, and felt suddenly sick to his stomach as nausea rolled through him. He probed the hard, metallic bump, and she straightened, her own hand rising to join his, her fingers sliding along his in a grotesque parody of a few moments ago, when she’d shown him how to pleasure her. Their eyes met. Hers were wide with shock, and he was sure she read the dawning horror in his. The clamp had made them do this! She didn’t really want him ,after all, it was just the clamp feeding their emotions, heightening their responses. Anger, paranoia, lust. It was all the clamp.

He pushed on her hips, shoving her off of his lap, pulling as far away from her as the wall at his back would allow. She looked away, refusing to meet his eyes after that initial, shared realization. 

“Oh, God… I’m so—” he began. “The clamp. It made us… That shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have allowed…”

“No. No, don’t. It’s okay.” Her voice was shaking slightly, and she still wasn’t looking at him.

“The clamp…” he said again. Revulsion for his actions washing over him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” But he had meant it. He’d wanted it, thought about it, fantasized about it for weeks. Months. 

“It’s… It’s okay, Tom.” Her voice was stronger now, steadier. “It happens sometimes, with friends.”

It did? He and Meg had slept together, yes, but that was before they’d become friends, during the lonely and desperate few months after they’d first been pulled into the Delta Quadrant. In fact, their budding friendship had put an end to the sex. But could the same thing have happened to B’Elanna? With whom? Chakotay? Ayala? Harry? No, not him. Tom wouldn’t be able to stand it if she and Harry had… And Harry would have told him. 

A small, mean flare of jealousy curled in his gut, anyway. 

She was dressing hurriedly, pulling her pants up her legs, then tugging on her shirt, adjusting it. Tom quickly lifted his ass and hauled his own pants over his hips and fastened them. She was back in her corner, the blanket over her legs, the forgotten pipe clutched in her hands. 

He hunched in his own corner, elbows on his bent knees. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands, and couldn’t think of anything else to say.

***


	12. Chapter 12

She wanted him again already. Good sex always made her want more. She wanted him naked on a bed, so she could enjoy him. She wanted to look at him, to explore him, taste him. To mark him. It had been hard enough to resist him last night, curled around him with his scent in her nose. Hard to resist his warmth and strength. His familiarity. 

She’d crawled on top of him and unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick, and he blamed himself for what had happened! It was almost funny. Almost. But she didn’t feel like laughing. Her skin was still tingling, nerve endings still sparking, her muscles felt languid, lethargic. There was a warm ache in her belly. She wanted _more_.

She couldn’t look at him. And he was definitely not looking at her. He’d turned his face away and hid behind his hand for good measure. Just in case he had the urge to peek at her? She fiddled with the pipe, keeping her hands busy. She wanted to crawl into a cave somewhere, wanted to hide from him and his obvious regret. 

What had gotten into her? She was not sexually aggressive. She wasn’t. She’d spent a lot of time schooling her more forceful nature so she wouldn’t be some parody of a _Klingon female_. That infamous Klingon sexual appetite. She wasn’t some sort of animal! 

She’d been attracted to Tom for a long time, who wouldn’t be? He was handsome, smart, outgoing. Self-confident and funny. People liked him, even if they didn’t want to. And she hadn’t wanted to, but… Even back while Seska was still on the ship, she’d been drawn to him, felt warmer, happier, when she could share a meal with him and Harry in the mess. And she’d been terrified when he’d become ill during the warp ten experiment. 

Then when he’d died… 

It was the Vidiian mine. That was when her opinion of him had changed, when she’d started to fall under his spell. He’d been so calm, so reassuring. Strong. He’d saved her then by not letting her give in to her fear. And, yes, his stupid story about his bad haircut had been less than inspiring, but he’d tried to empathize with her and it hadn’t felt like he was faking it. He’d been genuine in his ham-fisted attempt to comfort her. And she was absolutely certain that she would be dead now—or wish she was—if he weren’t in here with her. 

They were friends, close friends, and she’d ruined it. What the hell could she say to him? They had to move past this, pretend it hadn’t happened. Her scalp itched furiously now that she’d been reminded of the clamp. It felt like little bugs were crawling through her hair. Maybe they were. Her skin prickled, tiny pin-pricks that felt like bites spreading from the clamp out to her hairline, down the back of her neck, down her spine. Hunger gnawed at her belly, sitting like a cold stone. It was better to concentrate on that. 

She risked a glance at Tom. He was staring at her, observing her, while idly scratching his arm. He looked away quickly and so did she. She flipped the pipe on end and slid the tube back inside to check how well it lined up with the transistors. 

“Can you fix it,” he asked.

“I… I need more wire,” she said. “Where did you get it?”

Tom shifted, one of his legs sliding out along the floor in a stretch, his booted foot pointing toward the doorway. “From the chute, actually. There’s a panel missing on one side. I guess someone else tried to short it out, too. Before.” 

“Okay.” She moved to get up and he reached out toward her. 

“What are you doing?”

She flicked a glance at his face, looked away as she climbed to her feet. “To get more wire. And there may be some insulation or capacitors I can use.” 

He rose up too, blocking her exit from the hut. “I’m coming with you.” 

It was a statement, and the hair on the back of her neck rose in irritation. “I can take care of myself.” 

“No, you can’t. I should never have let you go off alone this morning.”

“Let me?” She felt her temper flare. Just because they’d had sex, didn’t make her his property! Especially since he thought it was a mistake. “Fuck you, Tom,” she snarled. She shoved her way past him, pushing past the curtain and stepping out into the corridor formed by the stacked huts. Some people were peering out, intrigued by their argument, and she wondered if they’d heard them ten minutes ago, too. Her cheeks heated and she was instantly mortified. 

Tom’s hand clamped around her upper arm and he jerked her backward, against his chest. He was standing in the doorway of their hut, and he’d lowered his voice as he spoke in her ear. “I’m not going to let him have you.”

She pulled her arm out of his grip and turned, staring at him. “Who?” She dared him to say it.

His eyes were like chips of stone. “You know who,” he gritted. 

“You’re a fucking asshole, do you know that?” 

“Wait.” 

She’d moved away but he grabbed her again, stepping up behind her and wrapping his long fingers around her upper arm. His scent assailed her, the musky tang of sweat, and the scent that was him, heady and warm. And under it, the smell of sex. She closed her eyes.

“We can’t forget the knife.” He stared at her until she nodded, then he ducked back into the hut. He was back a moment later with the knife in his belt. 

***

Fuck, she must think he was an idiot. He realized only now what had happened. She’d known all along how he felt about her, and she’d used that, used his longing for her, to manipulate him into helping her escape. And when she’d realized that he was on to her, she’d had sex with him to placate him, her ploy to throw him off the scent. The clamp hadn’t made them do it, the clamp had tried to warn him about what he knew all along: she didn’t want him. He shouldn’t trust her. 

He’d been so gullible. Such a sucker. He wouldn’t be again. 

He idly scratched the back of his neck as he watched her pull a short length of thin copper wire from around what looked like a plasma regulator that fed power to the hatch at the top of the chute. She carefully wound the wire around the metal rod, then reached up and teased out another length of wire. It was taking too long. People were going to notice that they were fooling around with the chute, and they’d be upset, angry. Was she doing it on purpose? Was she deliberately wasting time, waiting for Pit to show up? Had she arranged to meet him here? 

Tom’s hand slid over the back of his neck, scratching behind his ear then up into the hair at the back of his head. He heard a noise: the sound of a boot heel on a metal grate. A sound he was used to hearing, having served on a starship. It was anything but comforting here.

Tom’s jaw clenched. A shiver ran up the back of his neck, and he was instantly alert. He could feel eyes on him; someone was watching them. He turned and glanced around, looked toward the upper level. There was no one. And it suddenly occurred to him that that was odd. There was always someone milling around, always someone watching, waiting for a chance. You never knew when a new prisoner would appear, or water. Or food. 

“Come on, come on, come on,” he chanted.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” B’Elanna snapped. “If I make a mistake, I could get myself killed. That’s a live power feed there, not a toy or a holodeck simulation.” 

He knew that. But he also knew how smart she was. How easy things like this were for her. She was delaying getting the pipe finished, he was certain of that now. His hand strayed to the knife in his belt, his fingers tapping over the surface of the handle, one straying to the sharp point at the end. He’d been thinking that he needed to find a second weapon for her but he was glad he hadn't, if she’d been armed, she would probably have used it on him by now. 

She slid the rod carefully back inside the pipe, easing a loose wire out and bending it down to connect with one of the buttons on the outside of the pipe's casing. She wound it around the button and tucked the sharp end up under the curl of wire. Tom glanced toward the upper level again, certain he’d heard movement, people talking. 

“There,” she said. “I’m ready to give it a try.” 

He jerked his attention back toward her. She was standing at the end of the chute, peering up into the tube where the hatch was located, about two metres up. The forcefield was closer, but it was invisible and he had no idea where it ended. She licked her lips as she held the pipe out. He noted that she looked nervous. It must be all an act, he decided. As _Voyager’s_ chief engineer, she knew exactly what she was doing with that pipe. 

He walked up to the chute and stood guard behind her, watching while she stood there, studying the edge of the tube. 

“Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked, his frustration boiling over.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he saw a flicker of irritation cross her features. God, she was gorgeous. Even frowning at him. Even knowing that she was planning to double cross him, he still felt a pull toward her, a tug of awareness and desire. He was a fucking chump!

He watched as she took a step up to the chute and reached upward with the pipe, and he was suddenly uneasy, second thoughts tumbling into his brain urging him toward caution. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea? Maybe she shouldn’t be holding onto it without something to insulate her from the live current of the forcefield? Before he could voice his doubts, she stretched her arm upward and connected with the forcefield. There was a flash of light and energy, and her body jerked. She grunted, and was flung backwards and hit the floor with a thud, She lay there, dazed and silent. 

“B’Elanna!” Tom dropped to his knees and smacked the pipe out of her hand, as if it had been the thing that had shocked her. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?” 

She groaned and brought a hand to her head. Tom helped her to her feet. She wavered unsteadily for a moment, then leaned against him, one hand clinging to his chest, the other rubbing the back of her head where it had connected with the floor. Tom brought his arm around her and rubbed, too. She was warm and soft and sweet in his arms, and he felt a now-familiar yearning deep in his belly. 

“What are you two doing?” 

Pit’s gravelly voice shook Tom from his false sense of intimacy and he started, dropping his arm from around her shoulders. He turned and made sure he blocked her from Pit’s sight with his body. He was standing in the shadows of a stack of crates with three of his men. One was focused on B’Elanna, staring at her in a way that put Tom’s back up. 

“Just out for a little stroll,” he said. “But we’re headed back now.” He reached down and circled her wrist with his fingers. “Come on.”

B’Elanna bent and picked up the pipe from where it was lying at the base of the chute. 

“What’s that?” Pit motioned to the pipe in B’Elanna’s hand. 

She raised her chin, and her fingers tightened around it. “It’s nothing. Just a pipe.” She held it out to the side, like she was ready to swing it. 

“What are you doing with it? Let me see it,” Pit demanded.

Tom ignored him and tugged on B’Elanna’s arm. Pit and his cronies had come from the direction of their compound, and the way back to their hut was clear. Tom straightened his spine, put his shoulders back. Lifted his chin. He tried to make himself appear larger. “I’d really recommend that you stay out of our way.” His hand dropped to the blade in his belt. 

Pit took a step toward him and lifted his own knife into the light. “You should have thought of that before you took her,” he said.

Tom felt B’Elanna’s arm jerk in his grip. He let go of her and shoved her behind him as he pulled his own blade from his belt. “Don’t try it, Pit,” he said. “She stays with me.” 

Pit charged him, slashing out with his blade in a wide round motion that used the swing of the entire length of his arm. Tom jumped backward to avoid the sharp tip of his knife as it arced toward his chest. He heard B’Elanna move, heard her grunt, and stepped to the side and risked a glance toward her. She swung the pipe at one of Pit’s men, and Tom heard the hollow _thunk_ as it connected with the side of his head. The thug cursed and staggered backward, stumbling into another of Pit’s guard dogs. 

“Get the fuck away from me,” she snarled. 

Pit jabbed at Tom’s belly, and Tom knocked his hand aside with an upward swing of his arm, his forearm connecting with Pit’s wrist. Tom danced backward. He didn’t want to be penned in against the chute, but he didn’t want to be separated from B’Elanna either and it was clear to him that this was their plan. Tom attacked, lunging forward while Pit’s knife arm was still up, hoping to get him to back off. He heard B’Elanna curse and grunt, and glanced toward her again. One of the men had grabbed her from behind. His arms were around her, pinning hers to her belly. Another had a hand on her breast, and he was leaning forward to lick her on the cheek. The first man laughed. Tom saw her face morph in revulsion as she snarled. She swore in Klingon and raised a knee to kick behind her at the piece of the shit who was holding her. 

He heard Pit laugh, heard him rasp, “save some for me”, and Tom roared. Pit returned his attention to him just in time to avoid the swing of his blade. Fury rose in Tom, and he charged him, knocking the man to the ground. He kicked him in the stomach, then the ribs, and felt a red wave of rage rise up from his gut and swamp him.

One of the men holding B’Elanna grunted in pain, and Tom watched out of the corner of his eye as she ducked under his arm and spun to face him, then surprised him with a slap to the groin. She planted an elbow in his chest, then swung the heel of her other hand upward to slam him in the nose. The man staggered backward in pain. She turned toward the second man, the one who had fondled her, and punched him in the gut, snapping her fist back as soon as she’d connected with his belly. He doubled over in pain, and she kneed him in the chin. It all happened in an instant, and Tom smiled. 

Pit was scrambling on the floor, attempting to get to his feet, and Tom kicked out at him again. His boot connected with the man’s wrist and knocked the knife out of his hand. It skittered toward Tom. Tom loomed over Pit for a moment, then kicked the blade he’d dropped toward the chute, out of the reach. 

He’d forgotten about the third man. 

The man stepped toward Pit’s blade as it skated across the floor. It smacked against his boot as it stopped. In one smooth motion, he bent and scooped it up then charged at Tom, sinking the blade deep into the side of his belly, just above his belt. 

“Tom!” B’Elanna screamed.

It felt cold. And there was pressure but, curiously, no pain. He glanced down and saw the handle of the knife sticking out of his abdomen. Red bloomed on his shirt as blood leaked from his belly and started to ooze down his pants. He heard it drip onto the toe of his boot. It looked bizarre. Wrong. Tom jerked a hand to his belly to cover the wound, knocking the blade, shifting it. He pulled it out and it clattered to the floor. 

The pain was almost overwhelming, and vomit rose in his throat.

He was bent over, his shoulders curled inward, arm hugging his gut, and he looked up and stared at B’Elanna. Her eyes were huge as she looked back at him. She still had the pipe in her right hand, and she swung it in wide arcs, clearing a path to him. “Tom!” He heard her call his name; her voice sounded muffled, faint. He couldn’t get the breath to answer her. 

“Back off!” she shouted. Then she was there at his side, warm and solid, and she looped his arm over her shoulders and pulled his body upright. He gasped at the flare of agony that shot through him. He was momentarily blinded by it. Stars danced in front of his eyes as his vision tunneled. She swung the pipe again and yelled at the laughing men to back away. Tom stumbled, his foot connecting with something hard. It was his own blade, lying where he’d dropped it. He saw the indecision in her eyes before she kicked it toward a crate that formed a wall at the entrance to the corridor that led to their hovel. 

Home sweet home, he thought. 

She half walked him, half dragged him toward the passageway, then leaned him against the crate as she stooped and picked up the knife. He’d started to tilt, was certain that he was going to face-plant onto the floor, when someone grabbed him roughly by the arm. He yelled in sudden agony as his body was pulled upright. 

Zio propped him up with a hand wound around his upper arm. His other was raised, palm out toward B’Elanna. “No fight!” he said quickly. B’Elanna looked at him, sizing him up, then nodded and tucked the pipe in the waistband of her pants. She held onto the knife instead. Zio helped her to loop Tom’s arm over her shoulder again. “Help me with him,” she said.

“Why bother,” Zio answered. “He’s dead already. If he doesn’t bleed to death, he’ll die from infection.” He shrugged. “I’ve seen it before.”

“Thanks for the tip,” B’Elanna snarled. She took a step toward the corridor and pulled Tom with her. He moaned in pain.

“What do you want for the dead man’s boots?” Zio asked. People laughed. One raised his voice and called, “I’ll take his shirt!” 

“You can make it, Tom,” she said quietly, her voice an intimate murmur in his ear. “Just a little further and we’ll be back in our shelter.” 

He shook his head. “It hurts,” he said. 

“I know.” She pushed against his hips, propelling him forward. 

“Promise…” He coughed. His vision tunnelled; his pain doubling with every step. It was blinding.

“What?” 

She glanced at him, but didn’t allow him to stop their forward momentum. Tom hissed with each shuffling step, pain sparking nausea in his belly, radiating outward and making his fingers tingle. He tripped over his feet and stumbled against her. “Promise… me. If you have to,” she slowed as she navigated a turn, and he sucked a breath. “Promise you’ll go. If you get the chance. Leave me.”

She stopped, one hand around his waist, her body taking most of his weight, and stared at him. 

“Do we have a deal?” he asked. The hand that had been gripping his side rose and flailed at her, leaving a smear of bright red blood on her chin and the front of her tunic. His fingers slipped over the soft cloth as his arm fell back to his side. 

“Shut up, Tom,” she answered. “Save your strength.” 

They had arrived at their container home, and the curtain was down, covering the entry. Had they left if down? He couldn’t remember. B’Elanna propelled him forward and shoved the cloth aside. A man jumped out at them, and she started, staggering backwards, dragging Tom with her. He groaned as pain sliced through him again. He gripped his belly; it felt like his guts were spilling out of his stomach and pooling at his feet.

“What are you doing here? This is our—”

“Out! Get out!” the man screamed. His eyes were wild, and he turned and ripped the curtain down, exposing two more men huddled inside the hut. One had the thermos in his hand and he started to bang on the sides of the container with it. “Get out!” they chorused.

B’Elanna backed Tom into the corridor then stilled. She looked at his face, and he saw that she’d come to a decision. “No,” he gasped. “No, don’t go to him.” He reached for her again; his fingers scrabbled at her shirtfront.

“Be quiet, Tom,” she said. She gripped his waist and hugged him tightly against her side, and pulled him back the way they’d come. 

“No, he’ll hurt you. B’lannna,” he slurred. “Nooo...”

“Hush. I’m taking you somewhere safe,” she said.

Darkness clawed at his vision, points of light sparking like tiny supernovas on his retinas. He didn’t have the breath to argue with her. He hoped that he would be killed quickly, and that she could defend herself against Pit. 

*


	13. Chapter 13

“Come on, Tom. You can make it.” 

B’Elanna braced his weight against her hip and tightened her grip on his waist. She looped her fingers into his belt and hung on. He was leaning heavily on her—his arm heavy on the back of her neck, hand slack against her shoulder—and she was afraid that at any moment he would slip to the floor. If he did, she wasn’t sure she could haul him to his feet again. 

“There’s a rule for this, right?” she asked, her breath puffing against his temple. “About not dying while in captivity.” He didn’t respond and she tried again. “The one about not giving up.”

He groaned as she propelled him forward. He was perspiring freely, greasy sweat lending his face and neck a slick glow. Sweat prickled under her own arms as she struggled to carry his weight. He was tall, and probably weighed ninety kilos or more to her sixty. Her Klingon genes made her strong but not so strong that she could carry him if he were a dead weight in her arms. She’d drag him to safety if she had to.

“Tom?” Her volume rose and she heard a note of blooming hysteria in her voice. She’d been joking about him dying, but what if he did? She’d be alone here… “Tom!” 

He grunted and flailed, his head lolling on her shoulder, his forehead smacking into her cheekbone. She tightened her grip on his belt and shot a quick glance at him, and saw that his eyes were open and he was looking around. She turned just before they reached the central chamber and led him down a new pathway, the one she’d explored that morning. It felt like weeks ago. 

“No.” He sounded strained, and she heard the pain in his voice. “...goin’ the wrong way.”

“It’s okay.” She tried to reassure him but he bobbed his head in an attempt to look behind them. His body jerked, and her hold on him shifted. She paused and tucked the knife into her waistband, feeling the cold bite of the metal on her belly. She grabbed onto his arm again and pulled it more snuggly around her neck. 

“Our food. ...gotta go back,” Tom said.

“We can’t go back!” Irritation flared and she tensed, her hands convulsing on his arm and waist. He gasped, flinched, and she dropped her hand to his hip. She felt a slick warmth on her fingers: blood that had soaked through his shirt and onto his pants. His blood. 

She was immediately angry again, furious that he’d been so stupid to have been caught off guard by that other man! If he’d trusted her to look after herself, kept his attention on Pit and the men around them, he wouldn’t be injured now. She tugged on him, trying to encourage him to walk. 

“Keep moving, Tom, or I swear I’ll drop you and leave you here.” Fear flashed in his eyes and she was immediately contrite. “I don’t mean it. I would never leave you,” she reassured him. 

He stiffened and pushed against her, his hand leaving another smear of blood on her chest. His back hit a metal grill that served as a support strut and he raised his arm to ward her away. She stared at the blood on his fingers, then reached out and enfolded them in her hand. 

“I’m sorry. Tom, look at me.” She let go of his hand and cupped his cheek, forcing him to look into her eyes. “I will not let you die. Do you understand me?” 

He gasped and nodded, released a shaky breath. 

“Come on. I know where I’m going.” 

He accepted her help and leaned against her again, and he seemed to have gotten a little of his strength back. At least he was more awake. They shuffled forward slowly. 

“Five more steps,” she said. She counted them in her head, watching Tom grimace in pain with each footfall. “Good.” She nodded but tightened her grip on him when he slowed. “Now five more.” 

“Did you,” he coughed and winced, “learn that from Chakotay?” 

She smiled. “From coach Kirkendall. I was on the track team in the Academy.” Tom’s answering smile looked more like a grimace. “We really are almost there,” she said. 

“Zio?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head. She was still angry over the bastard’s comment about Tom’s boots. “I don’t trust him.” 

“Stop!” 

B’Elanna’s head snapped up at the command. The tall, blonde woman she’d met this morning, Farryn, barred her way. She was holding a very long metal pole that had been flattened and sharpened at one end, resembling a pike. It looked deadly, and B’Elanna wasn’t in a hurry to find out how sharp that end was. She stopped in front of the makeshift gate.

“What are you doing back here?” Farryn demanded.

Wasn’t it fucking obvious? “Let me by,” B’Elanna answered. “I need to speak to Morra.” It wasn’t a request. 

Farryn was standing behind the large piece of metallic grillwork, likely one of the panels that covered the air intake tubes dotted around the prison. Propped between eight large cargo containers stacked two apiece, it made an effective barrier. The slick, solid sides of the containers assured that no one could climb them, and the area resembled an armoured fortress. The woman studied B’Elanna for a moment, assessing her, then nodded, but she jerked her chin toward Tom. “Not him.” 

“Let’s go,” Tom’s voice was rough with pain, “she’s not going to help us.”

B’Elanna ignored him and focused on the guard. “Well, now we have a problem,” B’Elanna said, “because I’m not leaving him outside. And Morra will be very upset with you if you don’t let me pass so I can tell her some important information.” 

Farryn looked indecisive and B’Elanna used her hesitancy to her advantage. Tom’s laboured breath panted in her ear, and her arm muscles were screaming with the strain of holding him upright. She wanted to put him down. “Believe me, she’ll want to hear what I have to say.” 

“Alright.” Farryn hugged the spear closer to her body and pulled the gate to the side, then stepped out into the corridor so B’Elanna could pass. “But leave him here, at the gate.” 

“No.” B’Elanna stared her down then walked right past her, pulling a shuffling Tom along with her. That stupid woman, she thought, couldn’t she see that Tom was injured? That he was bleeding? What the hell kind of threat did he pose to their compound in his condition? She wanted to rush her, to smack her aside and storm past, and if she hadn’t been supporting Tom she might have done just that. She took a breath and let it out slowly, Chakotay’s numerous lectures over the years coming to mind. She needed to be focused when she spoke with Morra, not raging with temper.

When the man, Nym, had confronted her about their being members of Open Sky, she’d tap danced around the truth, admitting they were offworlders and they’d heard of their fight with the Akritirian government, and had sympathized with their cause. It was obvious to B’Elanna that they hadn’t known whether to believe her or not. But Morra had issued that invitation to join them, and B’Elanna had been tempted, but she knew she couldn’t leave Tom outside the compound with those brutal men. His current state only solidified B’Elanna’s determination to keep him with her, here, with a metal gate and a guard between them and the rest of the prison population. 

And now here they were, asking for shelter.

They shuffled forward between the stacked huts. B’Elanna knew they were being watched, and wondered how many people were in this little community. She spied a small crate set against a wall and turned toward it. A woman stepped into her path. B’Elanna ignored her, and shouldered her way by. “Five more steps, Tom, I mean it this time.” 

He didn’t have the breath to answer her. She eased him down onto the crate and settled him against the wall. He was deathly pale and dripping sweat, his face pinched in pain. “Don’t fall over, okay?” she said.

She straightened and addressed the woman who had tried to block her way. “My name is B’Elanna. Earlier today, I spoke with Morra. Where is she?”

“Right here.” Morra appeared behind her. She had braided her hair since this morning, and it hung over one shoulder almost to her waist. Light glinted off streaks of silver, and her eyes were bright as she stared at Tom, studying him. Her head turned toward B’Elanna as she spoke. “I said we wouldn’t take your husband. You should be glad for the opportunity to get away from him. If you’re lucky, he’ll die of that wound.” 

B’Elanna didn’t know what to do: keep up the pretence that they were married and members of Open Sky, or admit that it had been a ruse to foil Pit and gain a little currency inside the prison. She studied Morra in return, tried to gauge her mood. “That was an act. He’s never treated me badly.” 

“You aren’t members of Open Sky, are you? Nym was correct.” 

B’Elanna tensed and wondered if Morra was more dangerous than she’d thought. She weighed the ramifications of continuing the lie verses admitting to the truth. “No. We’re not. But they are the reason why we’re in here. We were caught in a bombing, injured, and the authorities blamed us for it.” 

More people were stepping out of the shelters and observing them, likely wondering who they were and if there was going to be a confrontation. “We aren’t violent,” B’Elanna assured them. “I wasn’t lying when I said we’re officers on the crew of a Federation starship. It’s called, _Voyager_ , and our captain, our people, are looking for us right now. When they come for us, we can take you with us. But only if you let us stay here and help my… help Tom.”

“B’Elanna… you ca… can’t,” Tom coughed, then groaned in pain. “Can’t promise them.”

“Hush, Tom,” she replied. 

“He didn’t get that injury in a bombing.” Morra took a step closer to them. “What happened to him?”

“One of Pit’s men stabbed him. I need water and a clean cloth to use to dress his wound.” She glanced at Tom and saw that, if anything, he was worse for resting: his breathing was raspy, seeming to catch in his throat. His hand was clutching his stomach, and his eyes had closed as he leaned his head against the wall. 

“No one’s coming for you. No one will find you here.” The man B’Elanna had met that morning, Nym, stepped up behind Morra. “Our leaders were supposed to break us out of here, too, but no one’s come.”

B’Elanna ignored him and looked at Morra again. “You’re members of Open Sky, aren’t you? You claim you want contact with other races outside of your system. Please. If you don’t help him, he’ll die.”

“They can share my shelter.” A young woman, not many years out of her teens, stepped out of one of the huts. She looked at Morra, who nodded, then glanced back at B’Elanna. 

“Ayre needs boots,” Morra said. She motioned to the young woman who had offered to share her shelter. Her feet were shod in thin slippers that had been tied to her feet with strips of dirty cloth. They looked like they were about to fall apart. 

“Alright,” B’Elanna agreed. She knelt down and pushed the sweat-damped hair from Tom’s eyes. “You have to get up again,” she said quietly. “Are you ready?”

His mouth quirked, one corner lifting in a little smile. “I might have three steps left in me,” he said. “Then I’m planning to fall down.” 

B’Elanna flashed him a smile and looped his arm over her shoulders. She gripped his belt again, and looked at the young woman, Ayre. “Help me with him.” She did, moving forward and taking Tom’s free arm, then helping to pull him upright. Tom winced, and stumbled over his feet as he took a step. 

More people had appeared and watched their slow procession toward a cargo container at the end of the long corridor. When they were finally inside, B’Elanna eased Tom to the floor on top of a blanket. She turned her head to the young woman. “Get me clean water.” 

“Give me your boots first,” Ayre answered.

B’Elanna scowled, and toed them off and handed them to her—she wanted to throw them—then turned back to Tom. He was lying still, his body tensed, jaw clenched in pain. She was afraid to touch him. “This is going to hurt,” she warned. 

“I can take it,” he breathed. “Up ‘til now, it’s been a breeze.” 

The girl sat and pulled off her ratty slippers and slid her feet into B’Elanna’s ‘fleet boots. She was gone long enough for B’Elanna to ease Tom’s tee shirt up his chest, and unbuckle his belt and push his pants lower on his hips. She was excruciatingly aware that she had done the same thing not an hour ago, but for a very different purpose. She probed his side gently, avoiding looking at his face when he hissed in pain. His wound was still bleeding, but more sluggishly, the blood oozing into the fabric of his slacks.

“You don’t have a stick I can bite on, do you?” he joked. 

“Sorry.” She glanced around the small shelter but aside from the blanket there was no other cloth. Fuck it, she thought. She pulled the pipe out of the waistband of her leggings and set it down beside Tom, then unfastened her tunic and pulled it over her head.

“You know I think you’re gorgeous, but I don’t think I’m up to it right now,” Tom slurred. His eyes roamed over her bare shoulders and breasts, only half-covered by her silky black bra.

“Shut up, Tom.” She used her knife to nick a hole about ten centimetres from the hem and tore it straight across. It had come to her knees, and even with the piece gone from the front that she had used to hold the crumbs of the ration cakes, there was still a substantial amount of fabric left. She was as gentle as she could be, pressing the scrap of fabric to his belly, but he gasped in pain. “I’m sorry.”

“S’aa r’ite,” he slurred. His eyes were closed, and he panted through the pain. 

Ayre returned and thrust a jug of water at them. B’Elanna ached to tip it to her mouth and drink it all, but instead she slid her arm under Tom’s shoulders to prop up his head, then put the jug to his mouth. “A tiny sip,” she said. She gave him just enough to wet his tongue. Really, she shouldn’t be giving him anything to drink at all. Zio’s knife hadn’t pierced his stomach, but it might have nicked his bowel. Or he could vomit from the pain and asprate the vomitus into his lungs. She pulled the jug away from his mouth, and wadded up her rag and wet it. Carefully, she wiped at the blood on his belly and hip. The wound wasn’t large but the walk had smeared blood up his ribs and across his waist. She used the knife again and tore another strip of cloth off of the tunic, then folded it and pressed it to Tom’s wound, applying pressure. 

“Do you have any sort of medkit here?” she asked. “A dermal regenerator? Anything?” 

“No,” Morra answered her. She was leaning against the entrance of the shelter, and she scowled at B’Elanna’s question. “But I think there’s a medical facility just around the corner. Should I request an emergency vehicle to transport him there?” She lifted an eyebrow in a universal sign of sarcasm. “You shouldn’t bother. You could trade that for food,” she nodded at the tunic. “Infection will set in and he’ll start to rot, and you’ll be without him and a shirt.” 

“Thanks for the advice,” B’Elanna growled. “I’ll keep it in mind.” What the fuck was wrong with these people? Didn’t they care about anyone but themselves? 

“What’s that?” Morra had moved further into the cramped shelter and was staring at the pipe. 

“It’s our way out of here,” B’Elanna said. “As soon as I’m finished building it.” 

“The only way out is the way we got in. And no one has ever gone back up the chute.” Morra appeared in the doorway of the hut. “Anyone who tries gets hit with an energy pulse.”

“Well, I’m hoping that pipe will short it out. Then we can all get out of here.” 

“No one has, not since I’ve been here.”

“And how long is that?” B’Elanna asked. She had to crane her neck upward to look at her. The older woman shrugged.

“Half a revolution? Longer? I’m not sure. Since before Pit arrived and took over.”

B’Elanna had wondered how they’d been able to set up a separate community, why Pit and his henchmen had allowed it considering how many women were here and his determination to get her. Anger seethed in her again, licking along her nerve endings, warming her spine. She realized that she had stiffened, that her hand was clenched around the bloody rag that she’d pressed to Tom’s side. She packed it against his wound, then pulled his belt from his pants and refastened it around his waist, over the bandage, tightening it until he moaned. She was hoping the pressure would stem the bleeding.

“Why hasn’t someone done something about Pit?” she snarled as she worked. “Why do you let him threaten people? Hurt people?” 

Morra raised an eyebrow. “What do you suggest we do to prevent it?”

B’Elanna stood and faced her. “Fight back! Stand up to him instead of cowering in your little hidey-holes.” Her voice was rising, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from laying into the woman. “You’re supposed to be freedom fighters, so fight!” Her hand fisted, and she clamped her lips together; her breath was coming in short, harsh pants though her nose. 

“Just who do you think we are?” Morra asked. “We’re political prisoners. Most of us are here simply because we signed a petition.”

B’Elanna drew back, unsure whether to believe her or not. “But the bombing,” she said. “People were killed, we were hurt.” And she still had no idea if Harry was okay. 

“What bombing? Open Sky is a peaceful organization. We advocate nonviolent confrontation as a way to spread our message. We’re trying to advance peaceful coexistence and a sharing of knowledge with other races, you can’t do that through violence.” 

B’Elanna shook her head. “Well, it’s not like that anymore. We were caught in that bombing at the cafe and it was anything but peaceful.” Tables flying, Tom’s eyes, wide with shock. Smoke and bodies rising up into a brilliant blue sky. She stared at Tom’s blood on her hands and rubbed them on her pants. 

Morra shook her head. “We know nothing about any bombing. How will that thing open the chute?” She pointed at the pipe.

B’Elanna picked it up. “I’m an engineer. With this pipe, I can disable the forcefield. With a little luck, I can open the hatch at the top of the chute and we can all make it to the surface.” Morra simply looked at her, close-mouthed. “Why are you staring at me?” B’Elanna asked.

“I’m trying to decide if you’re lying or if the clamp has already made you delusional.”

B’Elanna huffed. “Neither. And I’ll prove it to you.” 

Morra nodded. “You stand your ground. I like that. We need people like you if we’re going to survive here. But if you insist on playing around with the chute, you’ll end up dead, like him.” She gestured to Tom.

“He’s not going to die,” B’Elanna gritted. Her hands balled into fists again.

“He’s dead already,” Morra stated. “We’re all going to die here, eventually. But if I had more people like you, we might outlast them all.” 

“We won’t have to. My captain is going to come for us.” 

Morra shrugged and turned toward the door of the shelter. “If you say so. But until then, if you want to stay here, you’re going to contribute.” 

“Fine.” B’Elanna agreed. She glanced at Tom; he appeared to have drifted off to sleep. Either that, or he was unconscious from the pain. “In return, we’ll need food and water.” 

“I watched you fight Pit’s men. If you can train Farryn and a few others, it will be a fair trade.” 

B’Elanna nodded and watched the older woman step into the corridor, then she turned her attention back to Tom.

*****


	14. Chapter 14

They’d found three ships that used paralithium as their fuel source, but none had appeared to have made the explosives that had blown up the Laktivia Recreation Centre. They’d stopped each ship and questioned their crew, likely overreaching their authority in the sector by doing so. Scans hadn’t shown any traces of trilithium or anything else that might have been converted into a bomb with enough power to blow up that plaza. 

Harry fought down a rising sense of frustration. It had been five days since the explosion that had ripped apart the square, and injured him and possibly gravely injured Tom and B’Elanna. The Akritirian authorities had said that they were alive and being held in a detention center, but hadn’t said anything about their condition. 

They were in pursuit of a fourth ship, a freighter, with a hold large enough to stockpile a hundred bombs like the one that had gone off on Akritiria. Harry wanted to get his hands on the people who had done this; who had killed so many people with so little remorse, not caring who they hurt. He, Tom, B’Elanna: none of them were involved in this fight. They hadn’t even heard of Open Sky when they’d been granted permission for shore leave on the planet. Well, they’d opened the sky alright, he thought. Blown it the hell open! 

He couldn’t shake the image burned into his brain: bodies flying, tables and chairs flung aside as smoke and debris billowed up into the air. He’d seen the two of them sharing a table on the cafe patio, talking and smiling as they enjoyed the warm, alien sunshine. B’Elanna had glanced in his direction and waved to him. He’d waved back, seen her stand, then he’d been distracted by a ground vehicle that had turned a corner and headed directly toward him just as he’d stepped down from the sidewalk. He’d had to jump out of the way. Then he’d heard the explosion. He’d looked across the roadway and saw everything lifting up, expanding outward, spots of bright colour flung through the air that he’d only later realized were people. 

He’d been hit by flying debris and been knocked down by the percussive wave, and his clothing had been dirtied and torn. His eardrums had been damaged by the blast, and all he could hear was his own heart throbbing in his ears, but muffled like it had been buried under the dust and dirt and broken bodies that littered the plaza and street. He’d tried to stand, but couldn’t get his legs under him and he fell down again. Then he’d lost consciousness. 

He’d woken up in sickbay with Kes smiling down from above him. He’d already been treated by the Doctor—broken leg, cracked ribs, concussion—and felt a small amount of residual pain, but Kes had taken care of that with a quick shot from a hypo. Tom and B’Elanna weren’t in sickbay with him, and he’d been so relieved that they weren’t injured. It was hours later, after he’d slept again and the captain and Tuvok had questioned him, before he thought to wonder aloud why one or the other hadn’t visited him. 

They hadn’t even known that they were in the square at the time of the bombing.

It had taken three days for them to learn that they’d been convicted of the bombing and sentenced to prison. It was a ridiculous accusation. They’d been railroaded, of course. Blamed because they were offworlders, and as such, convenient. They’d never even heard mention of Open Sky while they were on the planet, and certainly hadn’t been warned about any terrorist activity when the captain had inquired about trade and shore leave for the crew. 

Harry checked his scanners. They were still a few minutes out from the freighter, before they could scan it properly. 

He should have cajoled Tom into accompanying him and B’Elanna on that tour of the power facility. Tom liked to play dumb, but he knew enough about power systems to fix a shuttle if it conked out on them. The tour had been interesting, and short enough to hold even Tom’s attention. If he’d been with them, they could have accepted the Director’s invitation to lunch and been nowhere near the plaza when the bomb had gone off. 

His panel beeped at him and he focused on the readout. “Captain,” he said, “we’re within hailing range of the Akritirian freighter.”

“I am only reading two life signs on board,” Tuvok noted. 

“Open a channel,” Janeway said. She leaned back in her chair, shoulders squared, chin up, as if the aliens could already see her. “This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship _Voyager_ to the captain of the Akritirian cargo vessel.”

They waited, then the image on the viewscreen changed from a starscape with a rather boxy ship in the middle of it, to a young man and woman. They had the telltale forehead ridges that denoted them as Akritirian.

“ _I’m the captain of this vessel_ ,” the young man said. “ _What do you want_?” 

“I’m glad you asked.” Janeway smiled and stood, and took a few steps closer to the viewscreen. “Two of my officers were convicted by the Akritirian government of a terrorist bombing. We’re attempting to prove their innocence.” 

“ _I… I don’t see how we can help you with that_ ,” the young man said. He looked behind him toward the girl. 

The captain’s chin came up another notch. We have reason to believe that a ship like yours, which uses paralithium for fuel, might have been involved in the production of trilithium, which was used in the explosives.” 

Harry knew that tone of voice on Kathryn Janeway. It said, ‘I know you did it and I’m giving you the opportunity to confess’. They certainly did look nervous. The girl’s eyes had gone wide at the mention of the bombing. She must have made a sound that the comlink didn’t pick up, because the man turned his head to glance at her. 

This time the comm did transmit her words. “ _Let’s get out of here_ ,” she said. Her voice was thin and high, and Harry suspected it was due to nerves. 

“ _Quiet,_ ” her crewmate admonished her. He turned his attention back to Janeway. “ _This is a cargo vessel. We don’t have the facilities to convert fuel sources._ ”

“They’re lying,” Harry hissed under his breath. Commander Tuvok glanced across the bridge at him; he’d obviously heard his comment and disapproved. 

“Then you won’t mind if I send a few members of my crew over to your ship to have a look around, will you?”

“ _Vel!_ ” The young woman looked at him in alarm. 

“ _Not if they don't mind having their throats cut,_ ” he—Vel—responded, a hard edge to his voice now. 

Janeway was taken aback by that, and Harry saw her posture stiffen. “There's no need to be abrupt,” she replied.

Vel looked at the young woman and nodded, and the transmission from the little ship suddenly cut off, the image on _Voyager’s_ viewscreen returning to that of a starfield. “I guess you're not the only captain who doesn't want their ship boarded,” Chakotay said. 

When the Akritirian ambassador had informed them that B’Elanna and Tom had been convicted of the bombing, he had also advised them that _Voyager_ was about to be impounded and everyone on board arrested. It was a foolish claim, boastful, since their ships were no match for _Voyager,_ but it had served its purpose in getting them to leave the sector and abandon Tom and B’Elanna. 

The little ship fired up it’s engines, and Harry slapped a tractor beam on them, anticipating Janeway’s order. 

He fought a dark rage that was building in him. Getting angry wouldn’t help; he needed to focus on getting evidence that would free his friends. They came alongside the freighter, and Harry tapped some commands into his display. The result was exactly what he’d expected to see. “Captain,” he looked up and caught her eye, “I'm picking up residual traces of trilithium. They're faint but they're there. I think we’ve found our bomb makers.” 

“Well done, Mister Kim,” Janeway answered with a nod. “Mister Tuvok, send a security detail to transporter room two. Harry, beam those two aboard and tractor their ship into the shuttle bay.” Her voice held a hard edge.

Harry flicked a glance across the bridge at Tuvok, who acknowledged him with a slight nod. “Aye, Captain.” Harry smiled. 

*****

Tom’s head felt like a chunk of rock fused to his shoulders. He grimaced and tried to move but a bolt of pain shot down his spine, making his body seize and tense; he wanted to cry out. Then the _real_ pain hit him. He gasped, but that hurt, too: a sharp, stabbing pain that stole his breath and sliced through his gut, leaving him frozen, suspended in time. Stabbing… 

He’d been stabbed! His hand went to his belly, arm jerking, fingers smacking against a bandage and sending agony like fire up his side. This time he did sceam. 

B’Elanna was at his side in an instant, ducking through the open doorway of their hut, calling his name and dropping to her knees beside him. She grabbed his hand and pulled it up and away, and that hurt too. She raised his arm above his head and pressed it against the wall of the shelter.

She hunched over him, hands hovering over the bandage. “You’re okay,” she said. “Don’t touch it.” She tilted her chin up and glanced at him, and reached to brush the hair from his eyes. Her hand felt cool on his forehead. 

He was throbbing, not just his wound but his entire body ached to a pulsing beat that he assumed was his heart pumping blood through his arteries and veins. At least it meant that he was still alive. Death just might be preferable. He realized that he was lying down, stretched full out instead of curled. This wasn’t their shelter.

“Where are we?” 

“We’re safe, don’t worry.” 

B’Elanna fiddled with his clothing, exposing his wound, and he watched as she tore a strip from a piece of fabric and wet it from a jug. She dabbed at his side and pain flared anew, spiking through his gut muscles and gathering in the small of his back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to keep it clean.” 

Tom nodded, clenching his teeth against agony as she wiped around the wound. She tore another strip from her tunic—he recognized it now—and folded it neaty then tucked it against his wound, under his belt, refastening the buckle. 

“Is that too tight?” she asked.

Was it supposed to hurt like hell? If so, it was just right. “Fine,” Tom gritted. “Where are we?”

B’Elanna straightened and sat back on her heels, settling across him on the floor of the crate. “With some members of Open Sky. They have their own… camp, here.”

Tom attempted to sit up and she immediately leaned forward again and put her hands to his shoulders and pushed him back to the floor. “Stop moving,” she snapped. “You’ll make your wound open up again.” She was only wearing her brassiere, and her breasts were practically in his face. A memory of this morning rushed back to him, her softness and slick heat, how she’d felt like fire in his arms, like a drug, and he couldn’t get enough. 

It was the clamp, of course. Had she forgotten? Had she forgiven him? At least she hadn’t let him bleed to death. That devil that made him keep people at a distance made him do it… 

“I know it’s hot in here but…” he joked. 

She glanced down at her chest, and straightened. He saw her hands twitch. “Well, unfortunately, my brand new tunic is now being used to bandage that cut.” 

“B’Elanna, you can’t walk around half naked.” The idea was preposterous.

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll inflame the lust of every man in here? Don’t worry. Aside from you, there’s only one and he’s old enough to be my father.”

Her tone was short, and he didn’t understand why she was suddenly angry at him. Maybe she was pissed off about her new outfit being ruined. Maybe she was still mad at him over what had happened between them this morning. The sex. It hadn’t been his fault, not wholly, but he felt responsible. He watched as she busied herself with folding the tunic and capping a jug of water. She put both items in the corner of the shelter. While her back was turned, he clenched his teeth against a wave of agony and curled his body toward his injured side, leaning to his left, and lifted his right shoulder off the floor. He coughed as a swell of nausea built in his gut. She looked up and caught him trying to hook the collar of his striped shirt to pull it off of his shoulder. 

“What are you doing?” 

His fingers flapped at the fabric, and she caught them with her own, stilling them. “Help me get it off,” he said.

She did, though he could tell that she was pissed off at him. She had to lean over him to free his left arm from the shirt, propping his head against her chest as he sat forward. She helped to ease him back flat on the floor, and he lay stiff and tense with the shock of the utter agony his movements had caused. She pulled up his tee shirt and checked his wound again, muttering under her breath as she turned and grabbed for another scrap of cloth. 

“I hope that was worth it,” her tone was brusque, pissed off. “You’ve opened it up again and you’re bleeding.” 

He glanced at his belly and saw blood ooze from a three centimetre gash in his side. She applied a dry piece of her tunic and a shit-ton of pressure to his wound, and he felt suddenly dizzy with the flare of pain. It was like being stabbed all over again. His head swam, and that nausea was back. He _plunked_ his head on the floor and breathed through his teeth. She fussed over him, cursing, and he felt her tension like a tangible force. She looked focused as she scowled at his belly, angry, her eyebrows drawn together accentuating her forehead ridges. He’d never seen her this angry before, not even at some recalcitrant piece of machinery on _Voyager_.

He raised his hand toward her and she smacked it down. “Stop fucking moving!” She caught her breath and turned away from him to stare out the doorway of their shelter into the empty corridor. Her other hand was still on his belly, cool and gentle despite her flash of temper.

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m just…”

“The clamp,” he said.

“Yeah.” 

“You need it,” he said simply. 

“What?” The word was clipped, and her head snapped around as she stared at him. Her eyes glittered in the dim light. 

“My shirt,” Tom said.

“You…? What? Your tore open your wound again to give me your shirt?” Her mouth hung open in indignation. 

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Pretty heroic, huh?” 

She just shook her head as she concentrated on his side. “... as well take everything off so you can bleed to death,” she muttered.

Tom tried not to laugh; if just breathing hurt, he could only imagine the agony he’d feel if he laughed at her. Of course, he’d likely feet even _more_ pain if she caught him laughing at her. “You must be cold,” he said. 

“I should haul you up again and put it back on you,” she growled. 

“Please don’t.” He put a hand protectively over his rebandaged side. 

She sighed loudly, and Tom watched as she slipped her arms through his striped shirt, then buttoned it up as far as it would go. “It looks good on you,” he said.

Her chin snapped upward and their eyes locked. Suddenly, she sighed, and a laugh bubbled up. “For god’s sake, Tom. This is probably the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen. It would look bad on everyone.” 

He was taken aback by that. He liked that shirt. A lot. He’d worn it specifically because they were going to have lunch together on shore leave, because he thought he looked good in it. 

“Where were you before?” he asked. “While I was asleep.” He’d been worried when he’d woken up and realized that she wasn’t there. Afraid. 

“I was teaching some of the women here a little self defense.”

“Ah,” Tom nodded. “The old knee to the groin.” He smiled, but then remembered the fear he felt when he’d seen her fighting Pit’s men.

“Actually, elbow to the solar plexus, but both work.” 

“I imagine they would,” he agreed.

She’d raised a hand to her forehead and was rubbing it, eyes closed. She looked exhausted. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Tom said, “but you look tired.”

She stilled and glanced at him from under her cupped hand. “That’s strange,” she said. “I’ve been getting so much rest.” Her lips quirked and she sighed. 

“You could lie down right now, take a nap. I’ll keep watch.” HIs whole body was throbbing again; he didn’t think he could sleep right now anyway. 

“I told you, we’re safe here.” 

“Then in that case, you should get some rest.” He studied at her, and she glanced away. 

“I guess so,” she agreed. 

She set her back against the wall of the shelter and stretched out one leg. The other she drew up, knee raised, so she could rest her forearm on it. Her head hit the wall of the crate with a soft _thunk_ as she exhaled her exhaustion. She crooked an arm over her face, her inner elbow covering her eyes, and Tom stared at her mouth, her dangling hand, slightly curled fingers. 

He studied her features and noted that her mouth seemed more relaxed, watched her lips purse, and heard her let out another long slow sigh as she relaxed. Her head rolled a bit until her cheek rested on the cool metal wall of their shelter. 

His side felt like it was on fire, and his body throbbed in concert with his heartbeat. Even his fingers hurt. He consciously relaxed his hands and jaw, opened his mouth so his teeth wouldn’t clench together, and breathed through his pain. She was between him and the doorway, and despite her protestations that they were safe here, she couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure. His impressions of arriving were hazy, blanketed by pain and shock, but he did remember that they didn’t want them, had confronted them. He’d been passing out, his mind in that space between consciousness and oblivion, and had only caught some of the argument, but he remembered the emotion: anger, fear, danger. 

He was the ranking officer, even now, and she was his responsibility. How could he protect her when he couldn’t even sit up on his own? He hoped what she’d said was true: that they were safe, protected, with the group of Open Sky prisoners. But for how long? And what would happen if he didn’t get better? If his wound festered. 

“Promise me something,” he said.

“Hmm? What?” she asked. She didn’t open her eyes. 

“That if you get the chance, go. Leave me here.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tom.” Her voice was soft; she sounded tired.

“That’s an order, Lieutenant.” He tried to make his voice firm, to sound certain. “Promise me.” 

She did look at him then. “Fine,” she agreed. 

He nodded and closed his eyes. “Good.”

*****

“You have no right to hold us!” 

The man was younger in person than he’d appeared on the viewscreen, and twice as cocky. He reminded Kathryn a little of a fluffed up terrier, but if she was correct, he wasn’t all bark. His _bite_ had killed forty-seven people and wounded dozens of others. She wasn’t in the mood to pacify his ego and didn’t even bother to welcome him aboard. 

“My people have been accused of aiding a terrorist group called Open Sky. What do you know about them?”

“They're not terrorists,” the girl spoke up. She’d been led to Kathryn’s side, and Kathryn turned her attention from the young man to the girl at her elbow. “They're patriots. One day they'll lead the legitimate government of our people.”

“We don't have to answer any of their questions, Piri,” the man said.

His posture was rigid, and his voice held a note of warning for the younger girl. Kathryn had assessed her when she entered the briefing room, but had dismissed her to concentrate on him. He was obviously in charge, but if she had the information they were after, she might prove to be the key to locating Tom and B’Elanna. If she could get them talking.

“Sounds to me like your young friend here sympathises with these patriots.” Kathryn noted.

“She's not my friend,” he said shortly. “She's my sister. And our political views are none of your business.”

He was fluffed up like a chicken—or a rooster, she supposed—trying to make himself appear bigger than he was. Kathryn suppressed a flash of her own temper. She’d had enough of his posturing, and they’d already lost enough time in their search for Tom and B’Elanna. 

“I don't know much about your world or its politics,” she said, her diction precise, “but I do know that my people are being held for a crime they didn't commit and I'm going to do everything in my power to get them back. Do you understand?”

Tuvok entered the briefing room with an expression on his face that was decidedly un-Vulcan. He looked almost smug “We have confirmed that explosives were indeed produced aboard their ship, Captain” 

Kathryn stared intently at the young man in an attempt to get her message across to him, and put as much durasteel into her tone as she could manage. “Escort them to the brig. And have Mister Chakotay lay in a course for the Akritirian border.” It worked. Panic flitted across his face.

“Let my sister go. She didn't have anything to do with the bombing and she's only fourteen.” 

He might not be aware he was doing it, but he was bargaining with her now. But Kathryn wasn’t in the mood to bargain. She wanted her way, now, with no strings attached.

His sister spoke up, her chin coming up in naive bravado. “Prison doesn't scare—”

“Quiet, Piri,” he cut her off. Kathryn could see that she’d won; all the swagger had gone out of him. “Please, you don't know what you're saying,” he turned his attention back to Janeway. “Nobody ever gets out of prison on Akritiri. They'll just let her rot in there for the rest of her life.”

“I admire your desire to protect your sister but it's not really up to me, is it?” Kathryn pressed. It was like a game of chess: make your moves in increments, slowly boxing in your opponent until you had their queen in your sights. Though, in this case, the queen had blundered right in front of her. 

“Vel, tell them what we know.” Piri looked at her brother and all of her assumed sophistication fell away and she was suddenly a frightened little girl. 

Victory, Kathryn though. “Tell me what?” she asked. The girl opened her mouth to speak.

“Piri, don't,” her brother warned. 

“Our brigade found out where the maximum security detention facility is located,” she declared. 

“My sister has quite a vivid imagination,” Vel backtracked. It didn’t work.

“With this ship, you can attack the prison and get your people out,” Piri said.

She seemed a little too enthusiastic about that idea, and Kathryn shook her head. “I'm sorry. That's not how we do things where I come from.”

Anger and disappointment twisted Piri’s features. “Coward,” she spat.

Kathryn ignored her. “Mister Tuvok, see that they get a bath and a hot meal.” She returned her attention to Vel. “You made the decision to join this group. And you made the decision to involve your sister in it. And now she’s involved in the murder of forty-seven people.” 

“Please, Captain, you can’t turn her over to the Akritirian Guard! She’s just a child.”

“You should have thought of that before you placed that bomb in an open plaza and implicated my people in your crime,” Kathryn snapped. “Tuvok, get them out of here.” 

The briefing room doors closed behind them, and Kathryn let out a long, slow breath. She didn’t want to hand them over to the Akritirian authorities, especially the foolish young Piri, but she didn’t have a choice. Unfortunately, producing the real bombers was the only way to prove Tom and B’Elanna’s innocence. Starfleet protocol prohibited her from interfering in a planetary government’s business. Clearing the names of her people when they were so obviously innocent was one thing, attacking the prison where they were being held was another thing entirely. 

But it didn’t sit well in her stomach. Not at all. 

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin before she walked onto the bridge. She nodded at Harry, and noted the look of satisfaction on his face. “Chakotay,” she said. “Set a course back to Akritirian space.” 

*****


	15. Chapter 15

“You know, you never did tell me what you bought on Akriteri.”

Tom’s quiet voice interrupted the silence in their new quarters, and B’Elanna frowned and lifted her arm from her eyes so she could peer at him. She’d been dozing, relieved to be sitting with her leg stretched out rather than having to curl up in a ball. She’d been comfortable enough on the bare metal floor, Tom’s warmth near her, that she’d almost fallen asleep. It was ridiculous that she felt so much safer here, with the members of Open Sky, than in their old shelter. They weren’t safe anywhere, she knew that. These people had played at being soldiers, but if Pit’s men decided to storm their compound, they’d be overrun in moments. 

She’d been speaking with some of them as she taught them a few self defence moves, and it felt good to connect with people in this madhouse; to find a group who hadn’t forgotten that they were people. The Open Sky movement had formed a little over a year ago, according to Morra. She’d been a university professor then, and her students had been the ones to open her eyes to the corruption and oppression of the military, and to give her the courage to stand up to the government. They’d started by meeting before class to discuss the recent incidents of police brutality, the students gathering in her small classroom before her lectures, sharing ideas and interpretations of what it meant to live in a free society as opposed to the closed one that Akriteri had become. 

Her students objected to the militarization of their government, to the lack of freedoms and choice that people had. Despite having space-faring ships, the government permitted very little contact with outside races. The few outsiders who visited Akriteri were there by the permission of the government, and didn’t usually mix with citizens. Trade was strictly regulated, and their borders patrolled. Anyone who violated their laws was arrested. Citizens could be stopped and questioned, their homes and possessions searched, at the whim of a patroller. There was a lucrative underground marketplace in contraband items, and another in the warehousing of people termed criminals. Homes and property were seized, families separated, innocent people, like Morra and Ayre, Tom and herself, jailed after a ludicrous farce of a trial. 

They wanted what their name implied: a less regulated system for meeting and interacting with alien races. A more open sky where alien visitors, and the trade and cultural benefits that went with them, could enrich everyone, not just a select few corrupt people in power. And they wanted to feel safe in their homes, and wanted a more hopeful future for their children.

It reminded B’Elanna of another injustice, another group of rebels, and she wanted to help these people somehow, to fight for them and their cause. With them.

It took her a moment to pull her thoughts from Open Sky and to focus on what Tom had said, then she remembered. “A dress.” 

“You said that,” he said. “What colour was it?” 

She sighed. “Red. I don’t know why I even bought it. I mean, I’d probably never even wear it, but… it was pretty.” 

He continued to watch her as she spoke, and she felt a little silly, but he had asked. “It came to here,” she said, making a chopping motion of her hand ten centimetres below her knee, “and had short sleeves and the fabric was so soft it almost floated when I walked.” The skirt had been made of a thin, light fabric that had swirled up around her thighs in almost a full circle when she’d performed a very un-her-like twirl in front of the mirror in the dressing room. She’d felt a little silly, but the dress had been lovely, and flattering, and she’d felt a little kernel of joy blossom in her belly as soon as she’d tried it on. 

Tom was quiet, and she turned her head and peered at him. “Happy?”

He shook his head. “Now I wish I’d seen it on you. I’ll bet you looked… nice. You could have worn it on our dinner date in Marseilles, when we get back to _Voyager_ .”

She huffed a laugh. “At that restaurant on the water?” 

“Yeah. And after dinner, we can walk the pier, if you like.”

“In my new dress?” It was tempting, and a fantasy. They weren’t getting back to the holodeck until they got back to _Voyager_. And to do that, she’d have to find a way up that chute. Tom was staring at her, and she twisted her lips and turned her head towards the corridor. “Well, it’s gone now,” she said.

“I guess so.” Tom’s voice was quiet but it held a hard edge. “Gone, along with that cafe and forty-seven military police officers.” 

“Maybe they deserved it,” she murmured.

“What?” He sounded shocked.

“I’ve been talking with them, that’s all.” She lifted a hand and gestured toward the corridor outside their hut, the other containers beyond. “The members of Open Sky. All they want is what you and every other member of the Federation takes for granted: the freedom to interact with other races. They want to be able to make their own choices, to raise their children knowing that they won’t have to live under the control of a corrupt government.”

“It sounds like you sympathise with them.” 

She looked back at him when she heard the shock in his tone. “Maybe I do.” 

“B’Elanna, these people aren’t your Maquis friends, they’re murderers. They’re the reason we’re in here. And we don’t even know if Harry—” 

“Morra and the others don’t know anything about the bombing,” she argued. “They were arrested simply for voicing their minds, for speaking out against the government.”

“So they say.”

“What possible reason would they have to lie to me? You bragged about being in Open Sky, about the bombing.”

“Yeah. I wanted to warn off Pit—”

“And that worked so well for you,” she sneered.

Tom was furious, she could see it in his eyes. “They aren’t like the Maquis. Or maybe they are. It seems to me that they didn’t give a shit about collateral damage, either.” 

That comment took the breath from her lungs. “I don’t know why I expected you to understand. You were never a real Maquis. You’re only loyal to yourself.” She fought a red rage that welled up inside her. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to make him shut his mouth. 

“You know, it’s funny,” Tom said, dripping sarcasm, “but when I was in Auckland I was the only guilty man in that prison.” 

His voice had taken on that condescending tone that always riled her, even when she wasn’t exhausted and constantly fighting the urge to pound someone. And right now it pissed her off! “You don’t know anything about them! You haven’t been talking to them, you haven’t been listening to their stories.”

“No,” Tom said, lifting his body slightly from the floor as his own temper flared. “I’ve been lying here trying not to bleed to death!” 

He coughed, then groaned as he lay back down. She felt a tiny lick of satisfaction at his discomfort. “And whose fault was that?” She was not going to take on this. Not _this_! She sat up, all traces of her relaxed mood gone. “I can take care of myself,” she snapped. “I _was_ taking care of myself. I don’t need you to rescue me, Tom. If you’d been paying attention to your own fight, you’d have seen that guy with the knife!” 

He tensed and closed his eyes on a gasp, and she was instantly contrite. He shouldn’t be getting upset right now; he certainly shouldn’t be in the middle of a screaming match with her. She’d bet the entire compound could hear them yelling at each other. 

“Sure,” he snipped, his words breathy as he ground them out between his teeth. “Taking care of yourself by getting grabbed by two of Pit’s dogs.” 

“And while they were paying attention to me, they weren’t attacking you! For fuck’s sake, Tom, I’m Klingon, remember? Just because we… we…” Hot embarrassment washed through her. She didn’t really want to mention what they’d done, didn’t want to think about it right now. She certainly didn’t want to remember how good he’d felt, how good he’d made her feel. It had been way too damn long since she’d felt that way, obviously, since she couldn’t put it out of her mind. 

She climbed to her feet. She was tempted to rip off Tom’s shirt and throw it at him. It smelled of him, and of stale sweat too, but mostly of _him_. It was an intimate reminder of what they’d done just a few hours ago. 

“Where are you going?” 

The note of panic in Tom’s voice made B’Elanna pause in the doorway. She turned and looked back at him. He was cradling his gut, and his face was pale and drawn with lines of pain. “To teach Ayre how to punch. It’s like being hit with a…a...” 

“A tribble?” 

Her eyes narrowed and she huffed at him, then she turned and stomped out of the shelter before she gave _him_ a lesson in punching!

*****

“Unless you've decided to relinquish control of your vessel, Captain, I suggest that you do not proceed across our border.” Ambassador Liria sneered at them, larger than life, from _Voyager’s_ forward viewscreen.

“We've captured the people responsible for the bombing at the Laktivia canteen,” Captain Janeway said. 

Chakotay recognized that note of superiority in her voice, but he doubted it would have much sway with the Akritirian. From what he’d observed, both through his interactions with them on the surface, and through their farcical negotiations, he’d come to believe that they were a proud people, rigid and set in their ways. He’d been surprised when they’d been granted permission for shore leave, though not by the restrictions: to stay within the boundaries of the city centre, to limit interaction with the civilian population, to stay out of governmental run buildings unless escorted by a member of the military. He’d been surprised that Kathryn had agreed, though they had needed to restock their larder, and B’Elanna had pushed to be allowed to tour their power generation facility. 

“I'm prepared to trade them for the immediate and unconditional release of Lieutenants Paris and Torres.”

“Your crewmen have already been tried and convicted,” Liria said. 

He had told them that the last time they’d spoken though he appeared to enjoy stating it again. Kathryn paused before she spoke, and Chakotay suppressed an urge to turn his head and look at her. 

“Are you saying those convictions can't be reversed? No matter what new evidence is brought to light?”

“You are correct.” 

The smug superiority in Liria’s tone told Chakotay that he absolutely enjoyed delivering that bit of news. Anger clouded his vision. Paris, he was sure, could take care of himself, but B’Elanna worried him. Her Klingon temper got the best of her occasionally even here, on a ‘fleet run starship; he didn’t want to imagine how she was coping in an Akritirian jail, accused of murdering fifty of their military police. If they’d hurt her, if they’d punished her with anything more than incarceration, he’d get his revenge the Maquis way, and show them all what an insurrection really looked like!

“That is an outrageous policy,” Janeway said, her temper flaring.

“I assure you, it has proved to be a most effective deterrent. Good day, Captain.” 

Liria cut the transmission and Chakotay spun in his seat. Tom’s seat. “So much for negotiating,” he said. He wanted to rain hellfire down on them. He wanted to beam Ambassador Liria to the brig or, better yet, to the holodeck and his boxing programme and show him his version of a deterrent! He was counting on Kathryn, on his captain, to not let him down.

“What should we do with the prisoners, Captain?” Tuvok asked.

“Bring Vel to my ready room,” Janeway answered. “Now.”

Chakotay motioned to Ayala, and rose from the helm. He followed her into her ready room without invitation, something he rarely, if never, did. It was her inner sanctum, as private as her own quarters, and not at all comparable to his office. But today, he violated that privacy. 

“What are you planning, Kathryn?”

She’d been standing in the middle of the room, one had on her hip, obviously thinking. At his question, she paced to her desk and squared her shoulders. She raised that stubborn chin. “What do you think I’m going to do?” she asked. Her tone was cool, but her eyes flashed a warning. 

“I think you’re going to make a bargain with that young man. I think that you’re going to release him and his sister in exchange for the location of the prison where political prisoners are kept. How am I doing?” 

“Not bad.” 

“And I think if you do this, it’ll eat away at you. They killed forty-seven people and injured more, including Harry Kim. And regardless of how you feel about the government those casualties represented, those souls will weigh on you if you let that boy and his sister go so they can continue to build more bombs and injure more people.” 

“Fine words coming from a former rebel. I seem to recall a few skirmishes in your brief where you didn’t seem to care how many Cardassians you hurt.”

Chakotay jerked involuntarily. It wasn’t often that she used that card on him: his time in the Maquis, leading a group of freedom fighters. They had, though mutual agreement, decided to put their introduction in the past, to not allow their turbulent beginning to interfere with their day-to-day relationship of running the ship, of turning two groups of dedicated crew into one, united, instead of at odds with each other. It wasn’t always easy to let it go. 

“Our targets were soldiers,” he said. “And the government officials in charge of the camps who were given positions of authority in the new settlements. The ones stolen from the families who lived along the neutral zone.”

Janeway sighed and plunked into her chair. She rubbed her forehead with long fingers. “What do you suggest I do, Chakotay?” her hands dropped to her desk, palms up, “The Akritirian’s aren’t willing to discuss Tom and B’Elanna’s release, and they won’t allow us into their space without attacking us. They will defend their border. Are you suggesting we break Tom and B’Elanna out of prison and put Vel and his sister in there ourselves? She’s fourteen years old; if there’s any blame to be laid here, it’s his.” 

Chakotay stilled, his gaze shifting to the starfield outside the viewport on the upper level of the ready room. Out there, somewhere, was the facility where Tom and B’Elanna were being held. It was likely on Akritaria itself, but it could be on any of the planets or moons in the system. 

The door chime rang and Kathryn called, “Come in.” 

Tuvok and Crewman Foster entered leading a sullen-faced Vel. He was brought in front of Kathryn’s desk, and Chakotay couldn’t help but feel for the young man. She stared him down in silence, a classic Kathryn Janeway move, before she spoke. 

“You’re going to tell me the location of that detention facility and its shield codes,” she said, “and if I find my crewmen there, I’ll consider letting you and your sister go. I’m sure the Akritirian Guard would be very interested in apprehending both of you.” 

Vel drew back, lifted his chin and braced his legs, seemingly readying for a fight. 

“Do you really want your sister to spend the rest of her life in jail?”

Vel’s chest puffed with air, then he caught the expression on Kathryn’s—Captain Janeway’s—face and immediately backed down.

“I’ll tell you what I know,” he said. “I'll take you to the prison and I'll get you in, but there are members of Open Sky in there and I want to get them out too.”

“I don't think you understand the way this works,” she frowned at him and her expression hardened. “You tell me what I want to know, and after I get my people back, I let you and your sister go.” Her tone was even, but Chakotay could tell that she’d reached the end of her good will toward the stubborn young man. 

Vel shook his head. “That's not good enough! Most of the Open Sky prisoners haven’t done anything wrong. The bombing of the Recreation Center was in retaliation for—”

Janway tilted her head. “Mister Tuvok, inform the Akritirians that we're ready to turn the prisoners over.”

“No!” Vel took a panicked step forward and Tuvok closed a hand around his arm. “All right. I’ll tell you where it is.” 

“Good,” Janeway nodded. “Remember this: if I do let you go on your way, you need to think long and hard about what path you’re leading your sister down. And whether or not you want her to end up in that prison some day.”

Chakotay gave an order. “Crewman Foster, take the prisoner to Lieutenant Ayala at the helm. He’ll upload the coordinates and codes.”

Foster wrapped her hand around his arm and escorted him out of the ready room. 

Tuvok spoke up for the first time. “May I ask how you propose to get past the Akritirian patrols? No doubt they will attack as soon as Voyager crosses the border.”

“That's exactly why the rescue team won't be aboard Voyager,” she said.

“Captain?” Chakotay frowned. “Surely you’re not thinking of taking a shuttle? It would be small enough that it might slip through undetected, but if the patrol saw us and fired on it…” 

She arched an eyebrow. “Oh, we can do better than a class two shuttle. If I'm not mistaken, Mister Neelix's ship is still in our shuttle bay.”

“Yes,” Tuvok replied. “However, the _Baxial_ has extremely limited combat capabilities.” 

“Well,” Kathryn smiled, “let’s see what we can do about that in the time we have, hmm?” 

“I’ll get on it.” Chakotay nodded, feeling hopeful for the first time in days. He tapped his combadge as he headed for the door that led to the bridge. “Chakotay to Carey, meet me in the shuttle bay.” The first thing he would add would be a transporter. Weapons might take too long and make them a target if the Akritirians scanned the little ship. But with transporters, they could beam Tom and B’Elanna out before the authorities even knew they were there.

*****

“Are you right or left handed?” 

Ayre blinked at her, clearly not understanding the question, and B’Elanna sighed. She looked around the space where she’d been instructing Morra’s people and picked up a metal cup which was, thankfully, empty. “Catch this with one hand,” she said, then tossed it to the young girl. She made a fumbling catch with her left hand, grabbing at the cup and hugging it to her chest. 

“Good,” B’Elanna said. “Now throw it as hard as you can down that corridor.” 

Ayre frowned but did as instructed, and the cup sailed about ten metres before smacking onto the floor with a loud _clang!_

B’Elanna walked up to her and faced her. “I’m going to position you, okay?” She held her hands out and motioned to Ayre’s legs and torso. 

“Yes,” Ayre nodded. 

B’Elanna touched her left thigh and pushed. “Put your foot behind you and balance your weight.” The girl did as instructed and looked at B’Elanna quisically. “Not that far,” she said. “You’ll tip over. Now tilt your body slightly, so you’re standing firmly.” B’Elanna shifted into a grounded pose to illustrate how she wanted the girl to stand. “That’s right, bring that shoulder back just a bit.” 

The girl stood expectantly, and B’Elanna gave her a little shove to see if she was about to tip over. She swayed. “Resist me, push back and try not to move.” She did, pushing back just a little bit, and she stood firm. “Good. Relax.” B’Elanna nodded. “Now make a fist like I taught you, fingers curled, thumb tucked outside.” 

The girl obediently did so, and B’Elanna smiled. “Line up your first two fingers with the bones in your arm. You’ll be hitting with those fingers, not the smaller ones. And you have to keep your thumb down or you’ll break it on impact then it’ll be harder to fight.” 

Another nod. Ayre looked serious now, determined. 

“You’re not going to hurt me. I’m a Klingon. I’m stronger than I look, and my mother’s people are fighters; we don’t break easily.” 

Ayre smiled and nodded. “I understand,” she said.

“When you throw your punch, remember: start your swing from your feet. Feel your power move up your legs,” she bent and touched Ayre’s calf, then traced a line through the air as she spoke, “through your hips and upper body, through your heart, and out through your arm. Hit with the flat of your fingers, not your knuckles, unless you want to—”

“Unless I want to break them.” She nodded. 

“That’s right.” B’Elanna wound a scarf donated by Morra around her right hand, padding it, then held her hand level with her shoulder, palm out. “Hit my hand, with some force but not with everything you’ve got. I need to check your swing.” 

The girl fidgeted, moving her feet out of position, burning a sudden nervousness that B’Elanna recognized from her own first lesson with Chakotay. “Legs,” B’Elanna said, looking pointedly at Ayre’s feet. She glanced down and corrected her stance immediately, then jerked her chin up and nodded at B’Elanna. “When you throw your punch, it’s important to put in a slight twist, some torque, as your arm comes up and forward, toward your target. But the most important thing to remember is to snap your hand back out of the way once you connect. You never want your body to follow your fist toward your target.” 

“I want to try,” Ayre stated.

B’Elanna braced her wrapped hand and firmed her own stance, then nodded. “Then go ahead. Not too hard. We’ll build up gradually.” 

Ayre threw punches at B’Elanna for the better part of twenty minutes before pleading tiredness. She hadn’t done too badly for her first time, but B’Elanna felt the hesitancy in her, and had had to lecture her that if and when she was in a situation with one of those ferrel men, she literally couldn’t pull any punches; she couldn’t worry about hurting them or herself. Her life might depend on it. 

She found something to compliment her on so she didn’t feel like a total failure, then let her go, advising her to drink water and to stretch out her overtaxed muscles. B’Elanna sat on a small, overturned crate and closed her eyes and sighed. It seemed like she’d set herself up with an impossible task: these people were about as dangerous as a nest of _cha’naS_.

“She’s not a warrior.” 

B’Elanna glanced up from unwrapping her hand to see Morra leaning against a container. She briefly wondered if the woman had read her mind. “She doesn’t need to conquer armies,” B’Elanna replied, shortly, “she just needs to stun one of Pit’s men long enough to get away.”

Morra nodded and stepped toward her in a loose-hipped walk. “Who taught you to fight?”

“A friend.” B’Elanna handed her the scarf. “He used to be a fighter.”

“Not your husband?” Her mouth lifted in a sly smile.

“T—Tom? No.” 

“No,” Morra nodded. “When you two fight, you use words.” She cocked her head, a sly smile sliding onto her mouth. “Do you use words when you make up, too?” 

Her expression morphed into a grin as B’Elanna’s face heated with embarrassment. “You heard us arguing earlier?”

Morra laughed. “Pit heard you arguing, across the prison.” 

“Great,” B’Elanna muttered. 

“Passion is good. It’s when you stop arguing that you know you have a problem.” 

Arguing hadn’t done her own parents any good with their marriage, B’Elanna reflected. 

Morra changed the subject. “Tell me about that pipe; how does it work?”

“It doesn’t,” B’Elanna said shortly. She sighed and leaned a shoulder against a crate. “I was trying to build a device that would short out the forcefield near the top of the chute so I can open that door. But all I did was get shocked.”

“So what do you need to make it work?” 

“I’m not sure. A power source, and something to insulate the grip so if it does trigger the forcefield, I won’t get fried.” 

“Come with me.” 

Morra led her past the stacked containers to the end of a corridor. It was an area of the little compound that B’Elanna hadn’t explored, though now she realized that she should have. A large wall fan rotated slowly behind a metal grid, and beside it was a water spout. 

“You have access to your own water?” B’Elanna asked, incredulous. Of course they did, that was likely why they’d built their compound here, and why they hadn’t balked when she’d demanded some to wash Tom’s wound. She wondered if there was enough for her to bathe… 

“Ignore the spout,” Morra said. She pointed to a recessed panel on the wall. “Is that a power source?” she asked. 

B’Elanna reached for the blade she kept tucked into the waistline of her leggings and used the tip to pry off the cover panel. Relays that looked very much like the ones on the panel by the chute were blinking on and off. Behind them, set farther into the wall, B’Elanna spied what might be a capacitor. It wasn’t a battery, per se, but if she could rig it to the pipe, and if the copper wires that she’d so laboriously wound around the metal rod weren’t fused, she might be able to make her Faraday ‘flashlight’ hold a charge powerful enough to short out that forcefield.

“Is it useful?” Morra asked.

“Yes,” B’Elanna nodded. She reached for the cover panel to close it and noticed that it was padded with a thick layer of insulating material. She smiled. “Yes,” she said. “It’s very useful.” 

***


	16. Chapter 16

“ _It’s okay, Tom. They’re the ones with the guns, remember?_ ”

Tom jolted awake, consciousness slamming into him like he’d just run full-tilt into a forcefield. He gasped, panting breath, lungs heaving, his pulse pounding in his ears. He was hot and cold all at once, chilled and shaking while he burned. He stilled, his muscles contracting, freezing, as he took in his surroundings. They’d moved him from the bunks while he’d been asleep, put him in some sort of cage or container. He had to find B’Elanna! 

He tried to get up and pain paralyzed him. He lay there panting, his stomach heaving, until the pain muted and morphed into a distant throb that travelled through his belly, down his legs, up his spine. It was a counterpoint to his fear. B’Elanna had been gone for hours, or maybe days. He didn’t know; he’d woken up and she was gone. He hadn’t seen Pete since the guards had taken him away; he suspected he’d never see him again. He’d tried to get them to take him instead, but B’Elanna had been so frightened… 

It was his fault, his responsibility, all of it. As senior officer, he was in charge of the mission. He was supposed to keep them safe but instead he’d made the decisions that had condemned them all. He couldn’t live with himself if they took her away, too. He squeezed his eyes shut and sobbed. 

A cool hand touched his forehead, pushing the hair from his eyes, and Tom flinched. He opened his eyes and saw the silhouette of a person looming over him. His arm flailed, and she jerked backwards as he grabbed for her wrist; he held on tightly as she attempted to pull free. Her face swam into focus, and Tom frowned. His lips parted but no sound came out. 

The woman’s hair was too long, and her eyes, round with shock, were the wrong colour. It made no sense. He knew they’d separated her into two B’Elannas: one human and one Klingon, but why had they changed her yet again? He didn’t understand. “What have they done to you?” he croaked. His fingers dug into her thin wrist, and he felt her bones, felt her pulse point hammering. 

She screamed high and shrill, pulling her arm free as she fought him. Her fist connected with his head, making his ears ring. She kicked out at his legs and ribs as she scrambled backwards. Tom squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He wanted to weep as knifeblade agony stabbed through him. He curled into a ball and rolled to his side as tears ran down his cheeks. 

“Tom!” Then B’Elanna was there again, one hand on his hair, the other sliding along his arm, shifting him toward her until he was flat on his back. “Tom, look at me.” 

“No!” he shouted. “You’re not real!” 

“Leave,” he heard her say. He wanted to, he wanted to take her and leave this place before the Vidiians killed them both, before they harvested his lungs like they’d done to Neelix. Before they grafted her beautiful face onto that Vidiian doctor, Danara Pel. 

“No,” He mumbled. “We can’t leave until they bring him back.” Strong hands were on him, pushing, digging into his belly, pulling out his guts to give them to some Vidiian. “No!” he shouted. “Stop!” He shoved at the intruder’s hands, his fingers scrabbling over theirs. 

“I’m trying to change your bandage! Tom, stop fighting me.” 

B’Elanna’s voice, but her words made no sense. “Bring him back,” Tom begged, “take me.” 

“Who? Tom, look at me.” 

He blinked open his eyes and stared at her: same hair, same generous mouth, same dark eyes. She had her forehead ridges again. B’Elanna. He reached up and traced them with a finger. “They put you back together.” He was so relieved, he didn’t breathe for a moment.

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Did they bring Pete back, too?” 

“Pete?” Her expression changed from puzzlement to sudden understanding. “Durst? Tom, that was over a year ago.”

“I won’t let them take you like they took him! I’m the officer in charge. ...should take me. I’m in charge.” His voice broke on a sob.

“It’s okay, Tom. They’re gone now. They’re not coming back.” 

Her arms were around him, holding him, caressing his head, fingers pushing through his hair. “He has a fever,” he heard her say. “Wet that rag. Lie back down, Tom.” 

She pushed on his shoulders, and her hand cupped the back of his head as she encouraged him to lie flat on his back. A cool wet cloth touched his forehead and he closed his eyes. He grabbed her wrist, curled his fingers around her forearm. 

“Don’t leave me here! B’Elanna! Don’t leave me here…” He was so tired. He was fuzzy, fraying, dissolving. The world was muffled, like the Doc had given him a shot of something… “Kes,” he slurred, “don’t let her leave me…” 

Darkness called to him, then rose up and swallowed him.

***

“Is he dead yet?” 

B’Elanna jerked and almost dropped the thin piece of metal she was using to pry a relay from its place inside a panel located above the chute. She cursed as it connected with the housing and sparks flew downward toward her face. “Damn it!” she snapped. She glanced at Ferryn and scowled. “You’re supposed to warn me when someone comes.” 

“He’s not one of Pit’s men,” Farryn explained. 

“Just...” B’Elanna blew a breath. “Just keep watch.” She turned and glared at Zio, who was leaning against a container wall, staring evenly at her. “What do you want?” 

“His boots, remember?” he answered. 

“Well, he’s still using them,” she muttered. 

“I see you have his shirt.” Zio looked her deliberately up and down, his gaze lingering on her slipper and fabric wrapped feet. “What happened to yours?” he asked. 

“None of your business,” she said, shortly. She turned her attention back to the panel. 

“Don’t fight it, use it.”

“Use what?” 

It was close to a snarl but she didn’t care. The man was annoying. She was tired and frustrated, and worried about Tom. He was getting worse, his fever spiking to a dangerous level. His wound had become infected, the skin around it hot and red and angry looking. If they didn’t get out of here soon and back to _Voyager_ so the Doctor could treat him, she was afraid he’d die. She’d left him in Morra and Ayre’s care—after Ayre had promised not to punch him again—and worked to finish the pipe. She’d wrapped it in insulation, but she still didn’t feel confident in holding it while she directed its focused beam toward the forcefield. 

Getting access to the chute had been a lesson in patience, and she’d had to wait until a crowd of people had wandered away. She hoped to reroute power from the shield and back it up along the system, then induce an overload that would take out power to the chute itself. Then the shield would go down and it should be safe to pry open the door at the top and climb back up the tube. Her tour of that power plant had come in handy, after all. 

“The clamp. Your anger. Use it,” Zio said. 

“Use it?” She expelled a frustrated rush of air and slammed a fist against the housing. “And how do I do that? I feel like there are a million Klingon fire beetles in my brain!” 

“Good,” he nodded. “Make them work for you.”

She huffed a laugh. “And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Fire beetles sound vicious. Imagine them as your army moving in a vast wave to conquer your enemy.”

“Conquer my enemies,” she muttered. “Who are you, my mother?”

“There's a massive struggle going on inside you, B’Elanna Torres. A battle to the death between you and the clamp. You have to use whatever force you can to defeat it.” He’d moved closer to her, and his eyes were glowing with a fanatical intensity. 

“If it’s all the same to you,” she muttered, “I'd rather use my energy to work on getting out of here.”

“That isn’t the way. There’s only one way out of here, and it isn’t up that chute,” he said cryptically.

“Let me guess: death.” Her tone was flat; he was starting to grate on her nerves now, and she blew a breath and centered herself on her task. Getting irritated at Zio would only cause her to make mistakes that she couldn’t afford. 

Zio went on undeterred. “When I first got here, I assumed the clamp was just a refined form of torture to make our prison stay that much more arduous. Gradually, I began to understand it more fully.” He raised a hand clutching a sheaf of paper. “It's all right here in my manifesto. My insights, my reasoning, my evidence.”

“Really? Fascinating.” B’Elanna ignored him and concentrated on sliding her blade between the relay and the power coupling.

“It's an experiment. They're studying us, like animals. Pitting us against each other to find out what happens. You can see that, can't you?” 

She sighed, wishing he’d take his rambling, paranoid theories somewhere else. “I guess so.”

His eyes lit with an inner fire, and his voice took on a cadence that was as close to evangelical preaching as B’Elanna had ever heard outside of a Bajoran temple. 

“The greatest threat, of course, would be if we started to cooperate with each other, so they prevented that.”

“Sure,” she said. She breathed a sigh. “Look, either help me or get out of my way.” 

He didn’t seem to hear her, and she had to shoulder him aside as she walked around to the front of the chute. She studied the hatch, wondering how she was going to pry open its irised sections if the power cut fused it shut. If she was truly lucky—and the universe owed her some good luck—the hatch was magnetically sealed and a power cut would unlock it and force it open. She wasn’t going to hold her breath, though. 

“But there had to be more to it than that,” Zio continued, like a gnat buzzing in her ear. “And the longer I was here, the more I knew it was my job to figure it out. That's the reason I was put here.”

She turned her head and stared at him. “Reason? Why were you put here?” Farryn might not think he was dangerous, but B’Elanna vividly remembered him slashing the throat of a man and taking his ration cake. She spared a glance for her guard, but she was looking in the other direction, ready to call a warning if any of Pit’s men left their compound.

Zio raised his hands over his head like a good, old fashioned preacher, his face turned skyward, the papers in his hand rustling. “Eventually, it came to me, as though a fireball had exploded in my mind. This realisation gave me power over the others.” 

He took two steps forward until he was right up in her face, and B’Elanna realized that she had nowhere to go to get away from him. He grinned at her and she saw that his eyes were unfocused, glazed: he was lost in his epic saga. Her fingers tightened on her knife. 

“They don't come near me any more,” he grinned. “They're afraid of me because I know the truth.” His voice rose in triumph and he waited, expectant. “Well?” he said after a few moments of silence. “Don't you want to know what it is? The ultimate purpose of the clamp?”

“Do I have a choice?” She flicked a glance at him and sighed. Maybe if she indulged him, he’d get to the point and then shut up. “To torture us?” she guessed.

“It's inspired. Brilliant,” he enthused. He was back in her face now, and she could smell his unwashed body, his sour breath. “It's a method for controlling the prison population. We kill each other.” Each word was precise. 

As if she hadn’t already figured that out herself. “Sure,” she said. “You’re right. Brilliant.” The man was a lunatic. He’d obviously snapped after being here for so long. 

“So you must enter into the battle—”

“Battle!” She turned on him, practically screamed in his face then froze, paused and took a deep, ragged breath. “The only battle I’m fighting is against this damn chute. Now get the hell out of my way before I show you what the clamp has really done to me! Before I throw you into that forcefield and use you to short it out!” 

“If you let the clamp control you, you'll end up like that crazy old man that took over your shelter. But if you learn to control it, you'll survive. Like me.” 

“Maybe I don’t want to be like you.” 

She stared him down, and he retreated a step. She slid a piece of wire into position, then shook the pipe for a few seconds, hoping to build up a magnetic charge. She took a breath, then touched it to the end of the wire. Sparks flew, and the forcefield crackled and lit in a wave of static electricity. It glowed, then winked out. Carefully, B’Elanna stretched out her arm, aiming the pipe toward where the forcefield had glowed. Her heart was pounding, and her palms were sweating. She continued to reach until the pipe hit the hatch. Her relief made her feel weak, made her knees shake. 

She set down the pipe at her feet, then glanced at Zio. “Help me open it.” He did, both of them pushing the irised pates of the hatch toward the walls of the chute. It opened slowly, then smacked against the sides. She scrambled up, her feet slipping on the slick slide, climbing by bracing her body with her back and hands. It looked like there was another hatch at the top, but when she got closer, she saw that it was a window, black and crusted with dirt and debris. She hoped the filth was inside, not outside. She couldn’t see a release mechanism, though it was possible it was hidden within a compartment behind a panel that made up the sides of the hatch itself.

“What do you see?” Zio asked. He’d climbed partway up the chute and was staring at her. She ignored him and rubbed at the slick surface of the window.

“What do you see? Are you at the surface?”

The grime started to come away on her hand, coating her fingers. She pulled on the edge of her sleeve, tugging it over her fingers, and used it to rub harder. She saw bright dots of light, tiny and distant, set in darkness. Stars. It must be nighttime outside. Her heart rate had ramped up from excitement, and she wondered if she was strong enough to break the glass. The pipe might work, or there might be something tougher, harder, somewhere in the prison. 

She cleared away most of the grime, then shifted position in order to see more of the outside. Maybe she could spot a light source: buildings, maybe, or a guard hut. Nothing but stars. She put her forehead against the hatch and looked along the outside length of the building. It was hard to see in the darkness, but she could make out lights, red and blue, that edged what appeared to be landing struts or… stabilizers. 

“No…” she whispered. She felt weak; felt the blood drain from her face, her limbs. All she could see outside were stars and light glinting off metal. “Oh, no.”

They weren’t underground. They were in a ship, and the hatch didn’t lead to freedom, it led to the cold vacuum of space.

***


	17. Chapter 17

“You have to come, now. Hurry. He’s been calling for you.”

Ayre met them at the gate, taking B’Elanna by the hand and pulling her along the corridor toward their shelter. She was still numb from the shock of discovering that they were on a ship, not on Akritari. How would they escape now? How would it be possible? How would Tom ever stand a chance of surviving if they didn’t get out of this place?

She heard him before she saw him, his voice raised in an argument with someone, sounding high and strangled in his panic. “No!” he shouted. “Don’t take her!” There was a murmur of another voice, though she couldn’t immediately make out who it was. Morra was standing in the doorway of their hut, arms crossed over her chest, her mouth twisted into a frustrated pucker. 

“Tom, I’m here.” 

B’Elanna slipped past Morra and went to his side. Nym, Morra’s husband, was seated beside Tom, his hands on his shoulders attempting to hold him down without hurting him. 

“Tom, hey.” She put a hand on his chest and felt the quick rise and fall of his agitated breathing.

“Where is she?” Tom’s eyes looked glazed as he turned his head toward the sound of her voice. He flailed for her, and she grabbed at his hand and squeezed it. 

“I’m right here.”

“No,” Tom scowled and tried to push her away. “They took her away! Please, Kes, you have to help her. Give them your lung instead…” 

“How long has he been like this?” She turned her attention to Nym, who was still trying to hold down the thrashing Tom.

“He woke a little while ago caught in a terror,” the man answered. “He doesn’t hear reason. He thinks you’ve been taken by someone.” He shook his head. “He talks of butchers stealing people for body parts.” 

“I know,” she said.

“He’s either delusional or speaking to spirits. He won’t last long now.” The man gave her a sympathetic glance. “You should say your farewells.” 

“The only farewells I’ll be saying are to the others, outside that gate!” She stabbed a finger toward the entryway to their compound. “Get me some fresh water for him to drink,” she ordered. 

Nym stared at her, pity in his eyes, then nodded and rose. B’Elanna turned back toward Tom and replaced the damp rag that had fallen from his forehead in his thrashing. “Tom, it’s okay. It’s me, B’Elanna. I’m right here.” 

“He eats our food. He drinks our water. And he gets closer and closer to death.” Morra’s tone was hard. “Nym could use his boots.” 

Everyone wanted Tom’s boots, apparently. Nym, Zio, likely half the men in here. B’Elanna whipped her head around and glared at Morra. “He is not going to die. I’m getting us out of here before that can happen.” 

“How? Will you sprout wings and fly? Will you become mist and seep up the chute and into the open air?” Her voice dripped derision. “Your people know things we don’t, but I doubt you know how to do that.”

“If only I could show you,” B’Elanna murmured. It had been days. Too many days. Janeway would either come for them soon or not at all. And if she didn’t come… Anger welled in her, swift and sharp. The Akritirians bragged about being a modern, sophisticated, space-faring race, but they were barbarians! The Federation would never even consider allowing them to join with the way they treated their citizens. Open Sky should blow them all to hell! Overthrow their oppressive, tyrannical government and start anew— 

B’Elanna stilled, then reached toward the back of her head and threaded her fingers through her hair until she found the small, hard nub embedded in the back of her skull. She blew a slow, steadying breath and tried to let go of her sudden fury. It was just the clamp, that was all. Trying to make her angry enough to attack the others, according to Zio. His theory probably wasn’t that far off the mark. But if the Akritirians wanted them dead, why did they bother to feed them and give them water? Why bother with air and heat, for that matter? 

Chakotay had once said that she needed to find her inner pool of light and turn it down a few notches to the soft glow of a candle instead of the blazing blast furnace of a protostar. She snorted at the memory. To her surprise, thinking of him and his usual steady, reassuring stillness actually calmed her a little. But, she reflected, if he were here, he wouldn’t be that same serene, focused man she’d left on _Voyager_. He’d be the Maquis captain she remembered from two years ago, doing what needed to be done to help the people of Akritari win their fight over a dictatorial regime that locked up anyone who spoke out against them.

Nym returned with a cup of clean water for Tom to drink, and handed it to B’Elanna, then quietly left. He motioned to Morra to come with him, to give the two of them some privacy.

Tom had quieted, and B’Elanna leaned over him and slid her hand under his neck. “Tom? Here, drink this.” 

“... have to get her back!” 

His arm shot upward, and connected with the cup, knocking it from her hand and spraying them both with water. B’Elanna’s rage came back in an instant, hot and heavy and insistent, blinding her, rising up and swallowing her. Her jaw clenched, her hands balled into fists and she almost—almost—brought one down on his head! She jerked away from him, slamming her back against the wall of the shelter, pulling her legs away from his thrashing feet. 

She rested her forehead on her knees and squeezed her eyes shut. It wasn’t his fault, not the clamp, not the injury, not the infection that was making his mind dredge up old demons. Not being here with these animals who would rather kill each other than cooperate with each other. None of it was Tom’s fault.

***

Warmth. Stillness. He lay quietly as consciousness pushed away fragments of dreams. He slowly recognized his limbs: arms, legs, hands. He numbered them, and claimed them as part of himself even though they felt foriegn. He wiggled his fingers, moved his feet and bent them at the ankles. Curiously, that made his side throb. Then he remembered. 

“B’Elanna…?” he croaked.

He squinted in the gloom, his eyes finally focusing on her. She was huddled against the wall of the hut, a metre away from him. His voice was weak and gravelly, and he realized how dry he felt, dried up and light. She popped her head up and blinked at him, then scrambled to his side, reaching for a container of water and filling a cup. She slid an arm under his shoulders and helped him to raise his head, and then brought the cup to his mouth. He took a cautious sip of the water, then drank more, wanting to gulp it greedily. The metal cup was cold against his lips, the water cool on his tongue. 

“Slowly,” she said. She angled the cup away from his mouth, but he covered her hand with his and tipped it back. He could feel it going down his throat and spreading through his body, reviving him, making him feel more awake and alive. 

He finished the water, only spilling a little down his chin, and followed her movements as she set the cup down on the floor beside him then pulled the pipe from the waistband of her pants and put it down, too. 

“Did you try it? Did it work?”

“Yes, it worked.” She sounded tired but she mustered a smile for him. “I was able to get the hatch open and climb all the way up to the top of the chute.” 

“But… are we going now?” He made a move to sit, and she pushed him gently back down. “What was at the top? What did you see?”

“No, Tom.” She shook her head. She stared at him for a moment, then her eyes slid away. “There’s a second hatch that leads to the outside, the one that we came through when they put us here.” 

“Okay. So…it opens, right? You got it open? Where does it lead?” 

She shook her head and glanced back at him. “I didn’t. But there was a viewport,” she said. “I saw stars, Tom.” 

He was confused for a moment, then smiled. That was good! “It leads outside? It must be nighttime,” he said. “We should go now. Maybe the guards won’t see us.” 

“No.” She shook her head. “We can’t. I couldn’t get it open.”

“But the pipe—” 

“The pipe is useless now!” 

Her voice rose and he saw a flash of temper in her eyes. 

“We have to wait until they bring a new prisoner. Or the next time they drop those ration cakes down the chute. Then maybe we can surprise them and go up. We can get to the hatch before it closes and wedge it open.” 

Tom shook his head in confusion. That was ridiculous. If she could open one hatch, surely she could open the other? It made no sense. But…ideas tumbled into his brain, frightening him, shocking him. It made perfect sense, all of it. Why she was gone for so long, why she wouldn’t look him in the eyes. She was going to leave him behind! She was planning to take one of the others, Pit or Zio or someone, and leave him here to rot. He gulped a breath and jerked away from her, the movement sending pain shooting through his torso. She was going to leave him because she thought he couldn’t fight; because she thought he’d slow her down.

Desperation took hold of him. “Please,” he shook his head. “Don’t leave me here. Please, B’Elanna, you have to take me with you!” He clutched at her, his fingers scrabbling at her shirt—his shirt—trying to hold her here with him. 

“I’m not leaving you, Tom.” 

She was lying! Lying to him again. “Please!” Panic rose in him; he didn’t want to die here! He wasn’t ready. “You have to take me with you! You can’t leave me here to die!” 

“Tom, I’m not going anywhere. None of us are going anywhere.” 

“No!” he hollered. “You’re lying!” He saw the girl appear at the doorway, the young one who had given them her shelter. She looked frightened. Maybe if he appealed to her? “Please,” he said, a sob climbing up his throat, “please, take me with you.” 

B’Elanna huffed a breath. She shoved away from him and ducked out the doorway, and Tom felt a wave of heat and hopelessness wash over him. His face crumpled, and his nose pricked as his eyes fill with tears. He curled his body into a ball and sobbed.

**

She felt like crying herself. Or howling. Screaming! She could hear Tom’s sobs bouncing off the metal crates and echo along the corridor. He sounded pitiful, like a wounded animal. But instead of evoking her pity it just pissed her off! She kept reminding herself that this wasn’t his fault: his paranoia, his despair, the same way that her own anger wasn’t hers. It was the clamp, and the situation. She wondered if the Starfleet protocol for officers in captivity included advice on how to deal with a mechanism that purposely made you so aggressive that you wanted to pound everyone in sight, even your friends. 

She was pacing, so unreasonably angry at Tom that she didn’t trust herself to be in the same room with him. He kept insisting that she was planning to leave him, which was ridiculous. Where the hell did he think she was going to go? She hadn’t been able to tell him that the chute led, not to the grounds of the prison, but to space. It would have broken him. She had to get them out though, and soon, before the infection in his wound killed him. Before she did it herself. 

She stifled the urge to roar and took off toward the gate to their compound, her quick strides allowing her to reach the entry in moments. 

She hadn’t lied to Tom when she said she couldn’t open that hatch; if she had, they would all have been sucked out into the vacuum of space. She quite literally _couldn’t_ open it yet. But she’d been thinking, a half-birthed idea forming in her head. If she could get them all to cooperate, if Open Sky and Pit formed an alliance, they could be there, ready, when their jailors dumped another load of food down. They could climb up and wedge the hatch open and overcome the guards because they would have surprise on their side! They certainly wouldn’t be expecting anyone to try coming up the chute. And once on the ship, she could contact _Voyager_.

Farryn was back on guard duty and B’Elanna had no qualms about issuing an order to the woman. “Let me through,” she demanded. 

“Why? Where are you going now?”

“Are you leaving? Is it true? Did you get the hatch open?” Ayre ran up behind B’Elanna and tugged on her arm. 

“Yes, she did,” Farryn answered. “But she hasn’t told anyone what she saw.” 

“I saw—” They wouldn’t understand. “I saw a way out but—”

“There is no way out,” Farryn stated flatly. 

“Yes,” B’Elanna insisted, “there is, but we’ll all have to work together.” She pounded on the gate with the flat of her hand. “Open this, and I’ll show you.” 

“What’s going on?” Morra and Nym had joined them, as well as the rest of the members of Open Sky; they had likely all heard Tom’s yelling and were now gathering to see what all the commotion was about. 

B’Elanna grabbed onto Morra’s wrist. “Come with me and I’ll tell you.” She looked at the rest of the prisoners. “I’ll tell all of you.”

Morra studied her for a moment, then nodded at Farryn, who pulled the gate aside. B’Elanna strode out and walked quickly toward the chute, navigating the maze of corridors easily. 

“Everyone!” B’Elanna called as she walked. “Everyone, listen to me! I have something important to tell you!” 

There were answering calls, jeers and shouted admonishments to shut up, but B’Elanna ignored them. Some of the prison population emerged from their rat holes to stare at her. 

She looked up at the second level. There were men gathered on the catwalk, staring down at her and jeering. She turned as she called out to them. “Listen to me, everybody! This is important. You need to know this.” 

“What the hell do you want?” a gruff voice berated her.

Pit shoved two of his men aside and knocked B’Elanna on the shoulder. She turned, stepping back a few paces. “I've found a way out of here,” she said.

“There's no way out,” he sneered. He looked her up and down, no doubt assessing whether or not the clamp had finally done its job and sent her over the edge.

“There is!” she insisted. “Through the chute!”

At his look of derision, she squared her shoulders and snapped her chin up. “I've been inside!” 

Pit waved her away, then looked pointedly at one of his men and gestured toward her. “Bring her.”

“Listen!” B’Elanna backed up toward Morra and the rest of the Open Sky people who had followed her to the atrium. Since Pit didn’t believe her, she had to appeal to the crowd. “We have to work together! They'd like us all to kill each other, but we have to cooperate, instead. If we do, we can get out of here.” She saw Zio in the crowd and pointed at him. “He was with me when I shorted out the forcefield. He helped me to open the hatch. Tell them. Tell them I’m telling the truth.” 

“If you've been in the chute,” Pit stated, “where does it lead?”

“Space,” she said. There were more jeers, and the mood of the crowd was shifting, their entertainment having changed from amusing to ridiculous. “It's the truth! We can get out of here if we work together!” 

The crowd started to bang on the metal struts and stomp their boots on the stairs. They were shouting, hooting, and B’Elanna realized the danger she was in. She had to convince them that their only chance of escaping was to pull together and behave like reasonable people. But she would quite probably be killed before she had that chance.

Something hard hit her in the forehead and she felt the shock of it, a cold flair of pain followed by the wetness of blood snaking toward her eyes. She grunted, and felt a strong hand circle her arm. Her first instinct was to fight, to lash out and punch at the person who had grabbed her. 

“We need to go, B’Elanna Torres,” Farryn said in her ear. “Before you kill us all.”

She was backing up the corridor between the stacked crates, dragging B’Elanna with her. Morra and other members of Open Sky were with her, beating a hasty retreat from the agitated crowd. 

“I have to make them understand,” B’Elanna said. “This is our chance, If we work together—”

“They will kill you! Or play with you until you wish you were dead.”

“The chute leads to a docking port,” B’Elanna urged Morra and Farryn to listen. “Some kind of ship must come to drop off food, drop off new prisoners. We could get aboard the ship. If we work together, we could overpower the guards and take the ship.”

“You think they're just going to open the hatch and ask us if we'd like a ride home?”

“No, of course not. But we’d have the element of surprise.”

“And they'd have the pulse guns!” Morra answered. 

They were nearing their compound and B’Elanna dug in her heels. “Do you want to die here? No one is coming for us. If we don’t use any opportunity to escape, we’ll never get out of here.”

“You finally understand,” Ferryn muttered. 

“I could get a message to my ship, to _Voyager_ , and they could get us out. All of us.” She turned toward Morra, imploring her to agree with her. “We'll need weapons, something to surprise the guards, to hold them off.” 

“If I were like the others, I'd kill you,” Morra stated flatly. “You and your husband. I’d end your ramblings. But I don't lose control. That's the difference between me and you.”

The klaxon sounded, startlingly loud, cutting across their argument and silencing all of them. Someone behind them yelled, “It’s the chute!” They heard Pit call to his men, “New prisoner!” 

B’Elanna closed her fingers around Morra’s arm. “We have to try,” she said. “Don’t you understand? One day they’ll stop feeding us altogether. We have to try now.”

Morra’s eyes held hers for a long moment, and B’Elanna saw her hesitancy. Behind them, in the central clearing by the chute, she heard a commotion, people shouting, the noises generated by the excitement of the chute delivering something: prisoner or food. Then she heard a familiar sound and her chin snapped up.

“Phaser compression rifles!” She stared at Morra and closed her fingers around the woman’s wrist and squeezed. “That sound was a phaser compression rifle! They’re here! My crewmates have come to take us home!”

They turned back and ran toward the chute.

***


	18. Chapter 18

It wasn’t the way she’d wanted to handle it, but the authorities had given her no choice. They couldn’t be reasoned with, and she wasn’t about to leave two of her best officers behind to die in this backward system. There were good reasons why the Federation was selective in choosing its members. The Akritirian’s medieval approach to crime control and punishment evidenced one of those reasons. 

They had readied Neelix’ shuttle, outfitting it with a transporter and a phaser array. The work would have gone faster if B’Elanna had been overseeing it, but all of engineering had pulled together to get it completed in record time. When this was over, when Tom and B’Elanna were safe aboard _Voyager_ , she would put commendations in their permanent records. 

“Are we ready?” Tuvok, Murphy, and English nodded. “Mister Neelix,” Kathryn turned her head and looked at their guide, cook, morale officer and, for today, chief pilot. “Bring us alongside and dock us.” She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and secured her grip on her phaser compression rifle. Starfleet, at its core, was a branch of the military. Yes, they preached cooperation and peace, scientific exploration, but there was a reason why their ships were outfitted with phasers and photon torpedoes, why they had a well-trained complement of security and tactical officers aboard. Her crew was ready, Tuvok had seen to that. And they wouldn’t fail her today. 

The _Baxiel_ juddered as they came to a stop, and Kathryn heard the hydraulics whine as the docking ring was extended. The little ship shifted slightly as it hit its target. She watched a light above the airlock blink to life, then heard a hiss as the magnetic clamp let go and the tube filled with air. 

She hit the control and the hatch locking mechanism clicked, then the door swung away. She saw a second hatch, this one belonging to the prison ship, with a viewport in it, and slapped her tricorder against the keypad. An alarm sounded, similar to a red alert klaxon on _Voyager_ , but different in tone, then the hatch slid aside to reveal a narrow platform that dropped away to a long slide. She couldn’t see how long it was, or what was waiting for her at the other end. Tom and B’Elanna, she reminded herself, that’s what was waiting for her. 

“Let’s go!” she said, then jumped down the slide.

***

B’Elanna ran. There was a commotion, more yelling, then the high-pitched whine of another phaser shot echoed off the metal huts, seeming to amplify in volume. Tuvok’s voice ordered people to put their hands on their heads. This was followed quickly by Janeway’s, Do it now! It was her command voice, and it brooked absolutely no argument. The klaxon was still blaring. People were boiling out of their shelters, and B’Elanna had to push past them to get to the central clearing where the chute deposited new prisoners. She saw someone in a black and red uniform; recognized a familiar profile framed by auburn hair.

“Captain!” 

Janeway turned and strode toward her, one hand cradling her phaser rifle, the other outstretched. “B’Elanna.” 

B’Elanna shoved her way past Zio to grasp Janeway by the hand. “Captain!” She felt the momentary urge to weep with relief, but she couldn’t spare the time.

“Are you alright?” Janeway asked. “Where’s Tom?” 

“I’m fine. But Tom is injured. He needs help.” She noticed Tuvok and Crewman English with phasers drawn, keeping Pit and his men at bay. “He’s this way.” She turned and tried to pull the captain with her, but Janeway tapped her combadge.

“Neelix, do you have a transporter lock on all of us?”

“ _Yes, Captain! Four humans, one Vulcan and one half-Klingon. The Doctor’s bioscans of Lieutenant Torres latest medical—_ ”

“Beam us up, now!” 

“No!” Anxiety filled B’Elanna: a feeling of being too late. “Captain, wait. I promised—”

The gloom and filth of the prison barge disappeared in a shimmer of wavy light, and the bright surroundings of Neelix’ small ship coalesced in front of B’Elanna’s eyes. She spied Tom lying on the deck against the bulkhead looking small and filthy in the clean, shining cargo bay. English knelt by his side scanning him with a medical tricorder.

“Where are those patrol ships, Mister Neelix?” Janeway snapped. She strode up to the cockpit.

“Well, funny you should ask, Captain. They would be right here, practically on top of us,” he answered; his voice held a nervous quaver. He jabbed at the conn as the staticky-voice of the Patrol ship captain came over the comm.

“ _Akritirian Patrol to alien vessel. Disengage immediately._ ”

“Akritirian Patrol. Er, am I in Akritirian space?” Neelix fumbled over his words as he shot a glance at the captain. “Oh, dear. I thought this was the Heva-Seven refuelling port. You wouldn't by any chance be able to recommend a respectable establishment where I could have my navigational array repaired?”

“ _Disengage immediately. This is your final warning._ ”

“Acknowledged.” He punched a few buttons on the helm and B’Elanna saw on the scanners that they had disengaged from the docking port and had begun the startup sequence to engage the _Biaxiel’s_ engines. “My apologies for the little mix-up. I'll be departing now as per your orders.”

“Neelix, just get us out of here,” Janeway hissed.

“ _Power down your engines and prepare to be boarded_.”

“Er, what was that, Patrol? That last message was garbled. I’ll have to get a technician to look at my comm system, too.” Neelix punched in the command to engage the engines and they shot away from the prison barge. “I know it's a little cramped back there,” he threw over his shoulder, “so if there's anything I can do to make you more comfortable, let me know.”

“Wait,” B’Elanna called, her voice rising as she realized what had just happened. “Neelix, turn us around.” She looked incredulously from Neelix to the captain, who was now crouched at Tom’s side.

Neelix glanced at Janeway. “Captain…?” 

“Belay that,” Janeway ordered. 

“You can’t just leave them there!” B’Elanna insisted. “They took us in after Tom was stabbed. He would have died if they hadn’t helped us.”

“What are you saying, B’Elanna? Are you asking me to bring some of the other prisoners with us?” Janeway stood and stared at her, a look of incredulity wiping the concern for Tom from her features.

“Yes.” B’Elanna nodded vigorously. “The members of Open Sky. They saved our lives. I promised them that I would take them with us when we escaped.” 

Janeway’s mouth dropped open as she stared at her. She reached for her and held her arm loosely. “Are you saying that you want me to help convicted terrorists break out of that prison?”

“They’re not terrorists.” B’Elanna shook her head, willing Janeway to understand. “They’re freedom fighters!”

“Like the Maquis?” 

Her eyebrow rose in a question and B’Elanna’s body jerked. “Yes,” she answered. “Yes.” She nodded. “All they want is the freedom to—” 

“They’re responsible for you and Tom being in that prison,” Janeway’s tone was dismissive. “They killed forty-seven security officers with the bomb they placed at that recreation centre, and injured hundreds more.” Her face hardened. “That sounds like a terrorist to me.”

“But the people in the prison didn’t do any of that!” She had to make the captain understand before they were too far away from the ship to go back and beam them on board. “They had no idea that their group had started to use violence. They’re a peaceful organization.” She shook her head, and bunched her hand into a fist. “They probably felt it was the only way to get attention; the only way to force change in a government that controls every aspect of their lives!”

“No!” Tom’s arm shot up and knocked the medical tricorder out of Crewman English’s hand. “No, stop!” he shouted. 

Both B’Elanna and Janeway kneeled down and reached for his flailing fists. “Tom, you’re alright. You’re safe now,” the captain said. 

“B’Elanna!” 

“I’m right here.” She squeezed his hand in both of her own, but he was looking at the captain, his eyes bright with fever.

“Don’t let them take her,” he insisted. “Where’s Pete?”

“What?” Janeway inclined her head, confusion drawing her eyebrows together in a frown. “Pete?”

“He means Durst,” B’Elanna explained. 

“Where is she?!” 

Tom was fighting them again, and B’Elanna leaned over him willing him to recognize her, but he was refusing to look at her. “Tom, look at me,” she demanded. “It’s me, B’Elanna. I’m right here.” 

“Take me instead,” Tom whimpered.

“Now would be a good time, Crewman.” 

Janeway was looking pointedly at English, who was holding a hypo. He nudged B’Elanna aside, and pressed it to Tom’s neck with a hiss. Tom’s body relaxed immediately, his eyes closing, head rolling. His hand went slack in B’Elanna’s, and she placed it on his chest. She could feel the heat rolling off of his body, see the greasy sweat on his face. 

Her head jerked up when the captain addressed her.

“Look, B’Elanna. These people may have helped you, and they may have kept Tom alive, but don’t confuse them with the Maquis friends you left behind in the Alpha Quadrant.”

“But I promised them—”

“You didn’t have the authority to promise them anything. Now, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to start a war with the Akritirian government because you made a bargain with a group of criminals while under duress.” 

B’Elanna slumped back on her heels, and pressed the back of her head against the bulkhead. Cold seeped through the thin fabric of Tom’s shirt, chilling her back and shoulders. She found herself scratching her head, her fingers sliding through her hair to play with the hard nub of the clamp embedded in the back of her skull. 

She didn’t understand: Janeway could never understand what she’d done in leaving Morra and Ayre and the rest behind. But B’Elanna did. And she would never forgive her for it.

***


	19. Chapter 19

He wouldn’t look at her. Or at least, he wouldn’t look directly at her. He kept sneaking surreptitious glances when he thought she wouldn’t notice, then quickly looked away again whenever she caught him. They’d been in sickbay for hours, and it didn’t appear that the Doctor was in a hurry to release them any time soon. 

As soon as Neelix’ little ship had slid into _Voyager’s_ shuttlebay, they had shot to warp leaving the Akritirian Patrol ship in their wake. Tom had been immediately transported to sickbay, but B’Elanna had taken the opportunity to once more implore Janeway to go back and pick up Morra and the rest. She’d known as soon as she opened her mouth that it was useless, but she couldn’t let it go. When the captain had turned to her, eyebrow raised as high as B’Elanna’s volume, and quietly informed her that she wasn’t willing to risk the lives of everyone on _Voyager_ because B’Elanna had bonded with a group of rebels, it had taken everything in B’Elanna to not pound Janeway into the deck. She’d roared her frustration, turned and slammed the flat of her fists against the durasteel wall of the shuttlebay, and her enraged, _listen to me!_ had stopped Janeway in her tracks. 

The captain’s response, a quiet, concerned, “B’Elanna, what’s gotten into you?” had made tears spring to B’Elanna’s eyes even as her hand went to the back of her head and her fingers caressed her clamp. She’d wanted to laugh then. The clamp had gotten into her, along with a renewed sense of injustice that had lain dormant for the last two years. Tom had certainly gotten into her, too… 

Janeway had pulled B'Elanna's hand from her head, asking if she’d been hurt, and had quickly pushed her own fingers through B’Elanna’s hair. She’d let out a decidedly un-captainlike gasp, and B’Elanna knew she’d seen the glowing red dot peeking out of her skull. “It’s the clamp,” B’Elanna informed her. “They use it to…” But she didn’t know what the purpose of the clamp was, not really. Punishment? Entertainment? Some perverse sense of justice? 

“You’re coming to sickbay. Now.” 

The captain’s voice had brooked no argument, but B’Elanna didn’t have the energy for one anyway. When they arrived, Tom was unconscious on a diagnostic bed, the Doctor and Kes working to repair the stab wound in his side. The medical arch was up, and he’d been stripped, a sheet and Kes’ body protecting his modesty. B’Elanna noticed the play of light over his shoulders and upper arms, how it caught the crisp red-gold hairs on his chest. She’d simply stood in the entryway of sickbay and stared at them until Janeway had taken her by the elbow and escorted her to a biobed and ordered her to hop up. 

She’d realized then, by the scowl on the Doctor’s face and how stiffly alert Kes held herself, just how badly Tom had been injured, and all of her anger at the captain had left her. Surely Tom couldn’t die from a knife to the belly? Not here, on _Voyager_ , with a state-of-the-art sickbay and the EMH to operate on him.

Janeway had squeezed B’Elanna’s hand and reassured her. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.” 

She’d pushed on B’Elanna’s shoulder and guided her to lie down, then picked up a medical tricorder and began scanning her herself. B’Elanna had lain on the bio bed without protest. It was the first time she’d allowed herself to appreciate how badly wounded Tom was, and it hit her like running into a wall. She still had his dried blood under her fingernails. 

“It’s barbaric,” the Doctor muttered. “What sort of advanced species goes around stabbing each other?” He appeared personally affronted at the damage done to Tom’s body.

“Did you scan him?” the captain asked. 

“Of course I scanned him!” the Doctor retorted. He gave instructions to Kes to begin to knit the muscle tissue, and glanced over toward B’Elanna. “Don’t tell me that Lieutenant Torres is wounded, too?” 

Janeway looked at her, but B’Elanna shook her head. Her hand had crept back to her hair, and she answered, “Just the clamp.” 

The Doctor frowned. “Is that what they call it? Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to study it before I can begin to remove it. Get comfortable, Lieutenant.” 

Giving in, B’Elanna closed her eyes and allowed her body to relax. 

“What can I get you, B’Elanna?” Janeway asked. 

A shuttle and a phaser compression rifle of my own, B’Elanna thought. “Could I have some water?” she asked instead. 

That had been hours ago. 

In the end, after scanning them and analyzing them and using the sickbay’s holo-emitters to create a holographic version of the clamp embedded in their brains, to study, and after listening to Tom describe the fate of the inmate who had ripped the clamp from his skull, the Doctor had simply beamed it out. It would do less damage to the surrounding tissue that way, he reasoned, and since it was a foriegn body, it was easily isolated by the transporter. He had offered B’Elanna hers to disassemble while he kept the one that had been in Tom’s head for his own forensic research. She hadn’t known what to say. 

B’Elanna had expected to feel instantly better with the clamp gone: lighter, maybe, or more content. But she’d felt no change. She was still angry, still felt violated. She wanted nothing more than to be allowed to go back to her quarters so she could be alone with, as Tom had said back in the prison, the door to her quarters locked behind her. But the Doctor had insisted on running more tests and injecting her with more medication, then running _more_ tests. He’d allowed her to shower in the bathroom attached to sickbay, and she’d told Kes she could burn her clothing if she liked. Tom’s ugly striped shirt deserved that fate, she decided. 

She had changed into the blue regulation sickbay pyjamas, but her feet were bare and she felt… exposed. She wanted to leave. But Sickbay had somehow turned into an evening at Tom’s _Sandrine’s_ holoprogram, minus the pool table. Neelix was there, along with the captain and Chakotay. Harry had managed to wedge himself between her and Tom’s biobeds, as if he couldn’t decide which patient he was visiting. 

“I've always thought of my piloting skills as modest at best, and the conditions were extremely dangerous,” Neelix was saying. “Still, I did outmanoeuvre those Akritirians, didn't I?” 

“You did a terrific job, Neelix,” Tom replied. 

B’Elanna’s shoulders rose as tension pulled her body tight. How would you know? she wanted to snap at him. Tom had either been delusional or unconscious during the flight back to _Voyager_. 

“I agree,” Janeway said. “Excellent piloting, Neelix.” She gave him a supportive pat on the arm. 

“I'm glad to hear you say that, Captain,” Neelix continued, “because I've been thinking. Until Tom here gets back on his feet, perhaps I could, er, try my hand at conn for a while.”

The captain looked momentarily lost for words, but Chakotay cut in, sparring her the task of disappointing Neelix.

“That won't be necessary, Neelix. We have a full complement of pilots who have all been trained to operate _Voyager’s_ conn. Besides, I’m sure Tom will be back at the helm in no time.”

B’Elanna noted that Chakotay didn’t offer to train him. The idea of Neelix sitting at the helm in Tom’s seat was ridiculous to her, but she wasn’t sure why. He was a competent pilot, and had flown his own little ship for the better part of ten years before he’d run into _Voyager_ and joined their crew.

“Lieutenant Paris is just fine, thanks to excellent medical intervention, but I’m ordering both him and Lieutenant Torres to take it easy for the next few days.”

B’Elanna was about to object when she felt Chakotay’s hand squeeze her shoulder. She turned her head and caught him studying her, his face set. It was his ‘no arguments’ expression, and she sighed. 

The Doctor turned toward Tom and B’Elanna. “I've finished analysing these implants, and you'll be happy to know that the treatment I've provided will successfully counteract their effect on you.” 

There was a smug note in his tone that grated on B’Elanna’s nerves. “So we’re fine,” she stated. 

“You will be,” he agreed. “In a few days.” He pressed a hypo to Tom’s neck, then replaced the cartridge and injected the same substance into B’Elanna. 

“What exactly did it do to them?” Captain Janeway asked him. 

It rankled that the captain was asking the Doctor, instead of her or Tom. If Janeway wanted to know the effect of the clamp, B’Elanna would be happy to demonstrate! Though… she already had, she supposed, back in the shuttlebay. She looked up from her intense study of her knees and caught Tom starting at her again. He quickly looked away.

“My readings indicate that the implants are designed to stimulate the production of acetylcholine in the hypothalamus,” the Doctor explained. He was looking at Kes, as if he was expecting something from her. She didn’t disappoint.

“Acetylcholine is a brain chemical common to the neural structures of most humanoids. Essentially, it helps stimulate one's aggressive tendencies,” she said. “That would explain the agitation you felt while you were in the prison.” 

She sent B’Elanna a smile that was meant to reassure. It didn’t. Zio was right about the clamp, afterall. But B’Elanna didn’t need anyone to explain to her why she’d felt _agitated_ in that hellhole.

“Very good, Kes,” the Doctor said. 

He sounded pleased, but their little display was about the last straw for B’Elanna. She straightened her spine, and her hands tensed as she gripped the biobed’s mattress. “So, can we go?” she asked. 

“Yes. But I want you to take it easy. I expect you to be tucked into bed early this evening, and to sleep in tomorrow. You’re off duty for the next two days, both of you. And when you do go back, Lieutenant,” he was looking pointedly at B’Elanna now, “I don’t want you crawling through Jefferies tubes or dismantling the warp core. You can sit in your office and study schematics or something equally soothing. You,” he turned to Tom, “are approved for light duty; a half shift, sitting down the whole time, on the bridge. Have I made myself clear?” This time he looked at the captain before returning his concentration to his patients. “You both need your rest.” 

“Perfectly clear.”

B’Elanna hopped off the biobed and took three strides toward the door before she faltered. The sickbay carpet felt rough on the soles of her bare feet, and she paused and looked down. She’d forgotten. Kes appeared at her elbow with a pair of slippers, which B’Elanna took with a resigned sigh, certain she’d feel like an idiot in the things. She bent to slip the first onto her foot, and Chakotay was there to lend her an arm to lean on. “Even you need help sometimes,” he murmured.

“Come on, Tom,” Harry was saying. “Anything you want to eat, it’s on me. You must have craved something while you were in that…” He faltered on the word ‘prison’, substituting barge at the last minute.

“I guess so,” Tom admitted. 

He and Harry had come alongside B’Elanna and Chakotay, and Tom slanted a glance at her. “You should join them,” Chakotay urged. “I can suspend your ration count for tonight.” 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “You must be starving. How about a steak dinner? Baked potato, big mound of deep fried onion rings?” His smile looked decidedly strained.

At the thought of all that food, both of B’Elanna’s stomachs lurched. It was a sweet offer, but B’Elanna didn’t think she could stand attempting to eat a meal while sitting across from Tom. 

“Maybe some grilled mushrooms on the side?” Tom suggested. He didn’t sound convinced, himself.

One of his eyebrows rose in question, and B’Elanna’s gut clenched at the familiarity of the gesture. She clasped her hands together. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m tired and I…” She caught herself digging at her fingernails, and she fisted her hands closed. “I’m tired.” 

“Are you sure?” Harry asked. “Fudge ripple pudding for dessert. I know you like chocolate.” 

“No, I think I’ll just get something in my quarters and—” Though she’d had a shower only an hour ago, she still felt the grime of ‘the pit’ on her skin, and she wanted another. She wanted to stand under the sonic waves for at least half an hour, and let the warm air scrub her clean of every last trace of that horrible place. It was too much to hope that it would remove her memories of it, too. 

“What about an apple tart with caramel sauce?” Tom’s voice was quiet, his tone deliberately even. 

Her head snapped around and she stared at him. He stood there, quiet and expectant, waiting for her to acknowledge their planned dinner date. Tom studied her. It was there, hanging in the air between them, shoving its way between the two of them and an optimistic, oblivious Harry: what they’d done together. How they’d lost control. She couldn’t seem to form a complete thought. 

Neelix saved her. 

“I was planning to make a special ‘welcome home’ dinner for you two,” he said. “It won’t take long. Some fried krestle on a bed of—” 

“Thank you, Neelix,” B’Elanna held up a hand to halt him before he listed the full menu, “but no. Really, all I want is to…” She didn’t want to mention a shower in front of Tom, or even the word bed. “...to get some sleep.” 

“Why are you all standing around?” the Doctor asked. He strode toward them, waving his arms in a shooing motion. “Go. Both of you. Knowing you two, I would have thought you’d be in a hurry to leave.” 

Harry raised an eyebrow at her, but B’Elanna shook her head, and he gave up and pulled an unresisting Tom out into the corridor. She heard Tom talking about glazed carrots and hot buttered bread rolls as the sickbay doors closed behind them. 

“I’ll walk you to your quarters,” Chakotay offered. 

B’Elanna sent him a sideways glance, wondering what he was up to, but he looked entirely guileless. “Okay,” she relented. She’d been doing a lot of that since she got back to _Voyager_.

She really would have preferred to walk alone. What had Zio said? We’re all alone? In a way, he was correct; she was feeling singularly isolated in her thoughts. But in another way, he was entirely wrong. It didn’t look like she was going to be able to shake off Chakotay until she was in her quarters. 

“After you.” He gestured to the sickbay doors. 

She’d been right about one thing at least: she did feel foolish walking through _Voyager’s_ corridors in sickbay blues and slippers. Her hand strayed to the back of her head again, her fingers searching for the hard, warm nub of the clamp. It wasn’t there, of course, and she wondered how long it would be before she broke that habit. Resentment that had nothing to do with the clamp roiled in her belly and sat heavily on her shoulders. Janeway hadn’t even heard her out, hadn’t bothered to listen to anything she’d said about Morra and Ayre and the rest. And B’Elanna couldn’t help but wonder if the Aktritirian Guard had exacted some revenge for their breakout. She shot a glance at Chakotay. He was staring straight ahead as they walked, and his expression gave nothing away.

She took a chance. 

“Chakotay, you have to talk to the captain. We aren’t that far out. If we turn around now—” 

“Not here,” he answered. 

The turbolift doors opened and Ensign Jenkins walked out. She smiled widely when she saw B’Elanna. “Lieutenant, it’s good to have you and Lieutenant Paris back,” she said. 

B’Elanna smiled tightly in return and thanked her as she and Chakotay stepped into the lift. As soon as the doors closed she turned toward him. “You heard what the Doctor said the clamp does to people. We can’t leave them there. We have no idea what’s happened to them now.”

“B’Elanna…” 

“They’re innocent!” she exploded, frustration forcing her volume to rise even though she’d promised herself that she would keep her temper in check. Chakotay needed to be cajoled, not bullied. She drew a calming breath. “They took me and Tom in when he was wounded. They didn’t have to. He would have died if they hadn’t. I would have died. You saw how badly he was injured.” She implored him now, hoping to tap into his buried Maquis sense of justice. “The patrol ship must have reported to the Guard by now. We have no idea what they’ve done to the inmates in retaliation for our escape.”

“You don’t know that anything has happened to them,” Chakotay said reasonably.

“Because we didn’t stick around long enough to find out!” 

“We can’t get involved in the internal—”

“Really?” she scoffed. “You’re going to pull the Prime Directive on me? Maybe we should have just let the Cardassians do whatever the hell they wanted to those Bajoran settlements then.”

“It’s not the same.” He looked away from her and she knew she’d scored a direct hit. 

“It is! All the members of Open Sky ever wanted was contact with other species, to share information and ideas. A chance to get a glimpse at how other species live. Look, you could convince the captain to give me a shuttle. Let me go back, just me, so I can beam them to safety. I wouldn’t be risking _Voyager_ that way.” 

“No, you’d just be risking yourself.” They arrived at her door, and Chakotay stopped abruptly. “It’s not going to happen, so you can stop making plans.” His voice lowered, and his tone warmed with compassion. “I understand what you’re feeling, B’Elanna, I do. But you can’t help those people. Your energy right now should be focused on helping yourself recover from the trauma you just experienced.”

“Oh, please,” she sneered. She heard the bitterness in her tone but didn’t care. At some point, she’d stopped talking to her senior officer, and her conversation with Chakotay had become personal. Maquis to Maquis. “Trauma?” Her voice dripped with derision. “After two years in this fucking quadrant, this was just another week.” 

He studied her for a long moment, then reached out and tapped an override command into the lockpad on the wall outside her quarters. The doors slid open with a soft _whoosh_. 

“Get some rest,” he said, then turned and walked back toward the ‘lift.

***


	20. Chapter 20

Tom stretched his back and shoulders and yawned hugely. It was his third in as many minutes. He wasn’t trying to hint at Harry that he wanted him to go, not precisely, but the evening had started to drag and he was beginning to wonder if Harry intended to camp out for the night on his living room couch. 

Harry had been unusually quiet for the first half of the evening, careful and deliberate in his movements around Tom. He’d been overly cautious in ordering their celebratory feast, running each selection by Tom for approval before he programmed it into the replicator. He’d seemed flummoxed for a moment by Tom’s insistence that they sit on the sofa instead of at his dining table, and had ended up sitting a little too close for Tom’s comfort. He’d eased into the corner provided by the tall, cushioned sofa back and the arm rest, and angled his body slightly away from Harry. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he would have preferred to be alone tonight. 

Eventually, Harry’s determination to fill any lag in the conversation with words had started to grate on Tom’s already stretched nerves. He had told Tom about the firefight they’d endured with the Akritirian Guard while they were waiting for the _Baxiel’s_ return, then about the repairs to the Bussard collector coil currently being supervised by Joe Carey that had kept him busy while Tom was in sickbay earlier. He’d admitted to his worry as the days passed with no word on Tom’s or B’Elanna’s whereabouts, and his growing frustration with the Aktritirian government when they refused to divulge their location. 

Tom had assured him that he was fine, ‘all’s well that ends well’, but Harry didn’t look convinced, and Tom could see the guilt behind his eyes. He didn’t want to get into it. He didn’t feel up to dealing with Harry’s unease on top of his own. The Doctor had given him something to counter the effects of the clamp, but his mind was still replaying the events of the past five days despite his body’s exhaustion, and he could barely rein in his agitation.

He felt another yawn coming on and fought it.

“I should probably go,” Harry stated. “You’re tired.”

“Well, maybe a little,” Tom agreed. “It has been a full day.” 

“Yeah.” Harry nodded. “It’s too bad B’Elanna didn’t join us.” He pointed to the remains of their feast, scattered across the surface of Tom’s coffee table. Most of the plates and serving platters were still half full of the various dishes they’d ordered from the replicator. They’d taken full advantage of Commander Chakotay’s suspension of Tom’s replicator credit account, and had sampled a dozen different selections, from that steak that Harry had mentioned, to cherry pie with vanilla ice cream. 

Or, at least Harry had; Tom’s appetite had been somewhat diminished. 

Harry reached for a couple of plates and began stacking them, trying to consolidate the mess. “It’s kind of a shame,” he said, “there was more than enough to share. It seems wrong to just recycle the leftovers.”

“Neelix can put it in his stasis unit if you want,” Tom suggested.

“Naw.” Harry dismissed the idea. “It’ll just go back into _Voyager’s_ energy reserves once it’s dematerialized.” He stood with a plate in each hand and headed toward the replicator. “You sure you don’t want me to save some out?” he asked. “You didn’t actually eat very much.” he noted. “You might get hungry later.” 

“If I am, I’ll replicate a peanut butter sandwich,” Tom answered. 

He liked Harry. Loved him like a kid brother he never had, and he’d been enormously relieved when he’d woken in sickbay and been told that Harry had escaped the blast with relatively minor injuries. But right now, he just wanted to wish him good night and watch the door close on his retreating back. “I can do that,” he said, gesturing at the coffee table. 

Harry created another wobbling tower of dirty dishes, and brought them to the replicator and placed them on the tray. He keyed the command to reclaim and they disappeared in a swirl of golden light. “Well,” he said. “That’s done.” His expression changed from exaggerated cheerfulness to sombre. “Tom, I want you to know that—”

“It’s okay, Harry. Really.” Tom got up from the couch and reached out to pat Harry on the shoulder. He shook his head. “I’m glad you weren’t there. I’m glad you didn’t have to go through that.”

“But if I had been there, we would have looked after each other, the three of us. Maybe you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

“B’Elanna and I were worried sick that you were going to come down that chute.” And that the reason why he hadn’t was because he’d been killed in the blast. Tom shook his head. “I’m relieved that you were safe here the whole time.” 

“Say,” Harry brightened, “how about we do something in the holodeck tomorrow after my shift? Shoot some pool or go for a hike?” 

“I might feel up to sitting on a park bench.” Tom placed a hand low on his belly. 

“Yeah, right.” Harry nodded. “I guess you should take it easy. We can invite B’Elanna.” 

“Sure.”

“Okay. G’nite then. Sleep well.” Harry gave him an awkward pat on the back. 

Tom kept his smile until Harry stepped out into the corridor and the doors closed behind him, then he allowed it to slide off his mouth. He and B’Elanna had to talk about what had happened in the pit. What had happened between them, in their shelter. He had no idea how she was feeling about it, or what it had meant, or even if it had meant anything to her at all. He wasn’t completely sure what it meant to him. He was attracted to her, obviously; he had been for a while. He'd have to be blind to have missed how gorgeous she was, how intelligent, and dryly, acerbically witty. He hadn’t just been trying to distract her when he’d told her about the date that he’d planned, he’d actually spent a not inconsiderable number of hours musing on what it would be like to date her, plural not singular, and just how he’d like their first date to unfold. 

Until a week ago he’d started to think that she really was his friend, Harry or no, and that he had a chance at something more. Well, from her reaction after they’d had sex, he’d probably fucked that up royally. He hoped he hadn’t ruined all of it, but he wondered. 

While Harry had ordered their dinner, Tom had changed from his sickbay pyjamas into a pair of sweats and a tee shirt, and he was about to pull the shirt over his head when he paused. She’d claimed that she was tired; would she be asleep, or was that some ruse because she hadn’t wanted to spend time with him and Harry? Had Chakotay talked her into a private meal? Or had Neelix convinced her to come to the mess hall for that dinner he’d planned? Maybe she really was in engineering doing that diagnostic she’d joked about. 

He tapped his combadge before he could talk himself out of it. 

“Computer, locate Lieutenant Torres.” 

::Lieutenant Torres is in her quarters: deck nine, section twelve:: the computer replied.

In her quarters, right where she’d said she’d be, safe and sound. But he had to be sure she was all right. He tapped his combadge again. “Paris to—” No. He clamped his mouth shut. She wouldn’t thank him for checking up on her. 

He ignored the comm’s inquisitive chirp at his interrupted command, and let out a long, slow breath, then headed to the bathroom for a hot water shower. If Chakotay really had suspended his ration credits, he could stay in until his skin was pink with the heat, and his fingertips had pruned. He couldn’t wait. 

***

Kathryn Janeway held the small, metallic device in the palm of her hand and studied it. Holohedral in structure, it narrowed to a sharp point on one end—the end that was, until recently, embedded in Tom Paris’ hypothalamus—and bloomed into a dull crystalline ‘eye’ at the other. She remembered seeing that eye, lit from within and glowing a bright, cheery red, protruding from B’Elanna’s skull. It had been so strange, so incongruous and frightening, that Kathryn’s scientist heart had fled for a moment and, instead of being intrigued, she’d experienced an immediate swell of fear at the sight of it. It had winked at her from between strands of B’Elanna’s dark hair, malevolent and patient like a living thing from a horror holoprogram that Tom might enjoy. It had taken her a moment to regain her ‘captain’s mask’. 

On her desk sat a PADD with the schematics of the clamp detailed. Before he had even attempted to remove the devices from Tom and B’Elanna, the Doctor had scanned it, and instructed the computer to assemble a holographic image of it, which they then dismantled to see how it worked. It was powered by a crystal cell that drew its energy from the electrical pulses of neurons in the victim’s own brain, and instructed the hypothalamus to produce an excess of acetylcholine, leaving the victim in a constant state of agitation. It was barbaric. 

Kathryn set the clamp on her desk and reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. She could feel a headache building behind her eyes. “How’s B’Elanna?” she asked. 

Chakotay who, until now, had been sitting quietly gazing out the large viewports at the fore end of her ready room, turned his head and looked at her. “She feels like she’s abandoned the people who helped her. She feels like she betrayed them. She’s angry.” 

“At me?”

He inclined his head in a nod. “Yes. And me, too, for not seizing _Voyager_ and turning around to go rescue her friends.” 

“A good, old fashioned Maquis insurrection,” Kathryn murmured. 

“You can’t blame her. It’s hard enough for her to fight her usual… impatience, without that thing flooding her brain with chemicals.” He pointed at the clamp. “She bonded with those people in order to survive. She feels like she owes them a debt for sheltering her and Tom, and protecting them from the others. And she’ll never know the consequences of us breaking them out. She’ll be left imagining what sort of retribution the Akritiran government will enact on the prisoners, especially the ones who identify as Open Sky. It’ll eat away at her, and she’ll feel that it’s our fault.” 

Kathryn studied him for a long moment. “Are you talking about her, or yourself?” 

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking if I felt any guilt for abandoning the Maquis when we were pulled into the Delta Quadrant?” 

“Did you?” she asked.

“It’s been two years, Kathryn. For all we know they didn’t need me or my ship to win our fight. They may have beaten back the Cardassian occupation and forced the Federation to change the Treaty.” 

He smiled, and his dimples flashed. Her sister, Phoebe, after a rather acrimonious romantic breakup in high school, had once warned her never to fall for dimples: they made the bearer appear innocent and charming, and could definitely sway the observer’s opinion about their character. Kathryn smiled at the memory, and shook her head. “I hope we find out. You’ll keep an eye on her?”

“And Tom, too.” 

She nodded in agreement. “Good. What I wouldn’t give to have a counsellor on board,” she sighed.

***

“Computer, end sonic shower.” 

B’Elanna’s voice was flat as she spoke the command. The computer wasn’t programmed to detect emotion so it didn’t care, and obliged her by cutting power to the relays. The swirls of warm air stopped abruptly, and the acoustic inverter gave a sharp, high-pitched whistle. It had been temperamental lately; she’d have to remember to have a look at it. She stepped out of the shower cubicle and reached for her robe. The terry cloth was soft and fluffy, an upgrade from the standard ‘fleet-issued robe, that had cost her half a week’s rations. A present to herself on her last birthday to go with the joke gift from Tom and Harry of a bottle of bubble bath and a rubber duckie. Tom had said she needed to learn how to relax… 

Tom. A tiny flare of unease rippled through her belly and she stilled. She felt the urge to check on him, to make sure he was alright. Had he eaten? Slept? Was he in pain? It was possible his fever had returned and—

And she was being ridiculous. She folded the lapels of the bathrobe closer to her throat, pulled the tie tight on her waist and breathed. In. Out. In. Out. She felt her muscles relaxing again and let her misguided concern for Tom slip away. Harry was with him. They were likely eating their way through a month of replicator rations and making plans for some great holodeck adventure, something involving space pirates or alien monsters or something equally ridiculous. Tom was fine—the Doctor wouldn’t have released him otherwise. Her concern, her sudden urgent flash of trepidation, was just a residual effect of the clamp and the five days they’d spent in the pit, relying on each other for their safety. 

But they were home now. Tom was fine! 

And so was she. 

She cleaned her teeth and studied her reflection in the mirror over the sink: dark shadows under her eyes, her mouth drawn down. She looked pale and tired. Maybe the Doctor was right, maybe she did need two full days of sleep and food. Her stomach growled obligingly, right on cue. She moved toward her living area, smoothing down her hair as she went, and changed into her red pyjamas, then paced back to the bathroom and hung her robe on the hook. She hadn’t been hungry when Chakotay had left her at her door, her residual anger at the captain had killed her appetite, but now she realized she was starving! She was craving something salty and spicy, and ordered a plate of Bajoran _hasperst_ with a large Caesar salad with extra croutons, and a glass of icy cold water. As an afterthought, she added a double helping of chocolate brownie for dessert. 

She brought her food to her bed and spread the plates on the blanket like a picnic, then climbed in. Food had never tasted so good. The _hasperat_ was perfectly seasoned, just the right mix of sweet and spice, hot enough that she had to get up and order more water before she finished. By the time she was savouring the last crumbs of the brownie, she was too tired to walk the empty dishes back to the replicator so she stacked them on her bedside table instead then settled under the blankets and called for the lights to dim. She’d brush her teeth extra carefully in the morning. 

As she fluffed her pillows and snuggled into the clean, fresh-smelling blankets, something jabbed her in the shoulder. She twisted, and slipped a hand into the sheets, her fingers searching. They encountered something small and firm, with short, soft fur. Toby. She pulled the stuffed targ from where it lay hidden half under her pillow and propped it on her chest. He was slightly scruffy with age, his dark grey fur a little matted and his snout scuffed. He’d taken on a red glow from the lights above her bed. She’d had him since she was a little girl, a gift from her human grandmother that had likely annoyed her mother. She’d brought him with her to the Academy, and kept him in her go-bag during the years afterward. When she’d been held in that Ocampan village by the Caretaker she’d thought he was gone forever, but he’d been safely stashed in her rucksack when she’d gone back to the _Valjean_ for her and Chakotay’s possessions minutes before he’d flown the ship into the Caretaker’s Array and blown it, and their hopes of a quick way home, to hell.

He’d helped her through her father’s abandonment, and her trying years at school on the human settlement where she’d grown up. Her tumultuous teen years with her mother, and her disappointment with the Academy and the breakup with Max. He’d probably soaked up litres of tears over the years. 

She stared into his bright black eyes and vacant expression, and her stomach clenched, her breath stuttered. She felt the tell-tale prick of tears. She was not going to cry! She was not! She was back on _Voyager_. She was clean and fed and safe. She was healthy. And so was Tom. Everything was fine now, and it would get back to normal in the morning. She could meet Harry for breakfast, maybe, ask him—casually—how Tom was doing. Find out what they talked about at dinner tonight… 

He wouldn’t mention _it_ , she was sure. He’d regretted it, she knew that, was sorry it happened and obviously didn’t want it to happen again. All that flirting, teasing her about the dress she’d bought, that bullshit about their dinner date in Marseilles, it was just Tom being Tom. He hadn’t meant any of it. She’d probably repulsed him with how aggressive she’d been: fighting with him over the pipe, crawling onto him, undressing him. 

She felt a wave of hot embarrassment. Thank god she could blame her actions on the clamp! They could go back to being colleagues, eventually. They would never mention it again, and she would make sure that he never suspected how she really felt about him. It was her own fucking fault, as usual. What had she expected, falling for a guy like Tom Paris?

***


	21. Chapter 21

She had a cup of hot coffee and a plate of _pranga_ wafers at her elbow, and a stack PADDs in front of her containing, in order: Carey’s ideas to upgrade the Bussard collectors, a real time update on the warp drive overhaul, the latest diagnostic on the warp system from last week for comparison, and a conn report submitted by Ensign Baytart instead of Tom. She shoved that PADD to the side and ignored it. She’d snuck down to engineering for a quick peek at the dilithium regulator, and Vorik had ‘concerned’ her right into the safety of her office. She’d closed the door behind her. 

After a day of napping and eating her weight in replicated meals yesterday, she’d been bored out of her skull in her quarters, and the holodeck held no appeal. To her surprise, she’d slept in this morning, but after a replicated breakfast and another long, warm, sonic shower, she’d found there wasn’t much to do. She’d tried picking up a novel that she’d been reading before they’d gone on shore leave last week—had it only been a week?—but it didn’t hold her interest anymore. She needed to be active; to move. And while the thought of a good, sweaty workout was appealing, facing other crew members in the gym was not. 

In the end, she’d changed into her uniform and strode into engineering as if she belonged there, which she did! She’d observed while Swinn and Tabor replaced the induction coils in the antimatter containment unit, only pushing Tabor aside once to run a check on the plasma feed pressure. The Akritirans had scored a direct hit on the port nacelle during the skirmish while _Voyager_ waited for the _Baxiel_ to return. The bussard collector had taken the brunt of the damage but the pulse shock had shorted out isolinear chips and coils throughout the nacelle, culminating in a feedback loop in the main engineering drive console. Luckily, they'd managed to cross the Akritirian border before the system had failed. 

They were currently at full impulse while her staff checked and replaced relays throughout the warp drive assembly. Replacing the chips was mind-numbing work, and not especially physically taxing, but locating each break in the drive system required her staff and herself to be alert. That’s why she’d paired them: so one could double check the other’s work before they moved on. 

While Tabor and Swinn were willing to overlook the fact that she was supposed to be resting in her quarters, Ensign Vorik was not. Carey had left him and Nicoletti in charge of engineering when he’d logged off-shift this morning, and Vorik was going out of his way to report each step in the diagnostic to her, no matter how minor. He’d been hovering, inventing reasons to check up on her. He was responsible for the coffee and biscuits, which she’d only accepted to get him out of her hair. Eventually, she’d sought refuge in her office and a locked door. 

The door chimed and she sighed. Resigned to her fate, she didn't bother to look up from her PADD as she called, “Come.” She heard the swish of the doors opening, but cut him off before he could speak. “Ensign, I’d like you to take a team down to the port nacelle articulation junction and run a diagnostic on the swing-arm control. We don’t want it to freeze the next time we jump to—Oh.”

She looked up, and saw Harry standing in front of her desk with a perplexed expression on his face. 

“I thought you were Vorik.” 

“So I’m not banished to the port nacelle articulation junction?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“Not yet.” Her mouth curved into a smile. “What do you want?” 

He shrugged, glanced around her office in a too-casual way. “I just wondered if you’d like to come to the mess hall and grab a cup of coffee, maybe some lunch?” 

A check of the chronometer revealed that it was past thirteen hundred. “I have coffee,” she said. 

“Right.” He drew a breath; took a seat without being invited. “Does the Doctor know you’re here?” 

“No.” She stared at him for a few seconds. “And you’re not going to tell him.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Wait. You wouldn’t track me down like this,” she stated. “Who tipped you off? Was it Vorik?”

“No.” Harry shook his head and tried to look innocent. He only succeeded in looking like he was hiding something. 

“Nicoletti?” Surely not. Sue was as by-the-book as Vorik but, absurdly, more restrained. She wouldn’t tattle on her boss for fear of retribution in the form of gamma shift for the next two months. Then it struck her. “Tom put you up to this, didn’t he?” 

He had the good grace to blush. “You’re not supposed to be on duty until tomorrow,” he pointed out. 

Her chin came up. “I’m not.” 

He looked her up and down, from her lipstick to her uniform to the PADDS scattered on the desk in front of her. “Okay,” he agreed. 

“I’m just…” she waved a hand in the air, “catching up on reports. It’s relaxing.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“And you didn’t answer my question.” He sat, mutely. “Is Tom keeping tabs on me? Did he ask the computer where I was?” Her voice rose, and she deliberately toned it down. “I managed to look after both of us just fine in the pit without his help. I don’t need him checking up on me here, so you can tell him to knock it off!”

“We’re just concerned. That was too…” His voice trailed off and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “How did Tom get injured? Was it during the bombing?”

Irritation flickered over her skin as the memory came back to her, and she released a harsh breath through her nose. “He didn’t tell you?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t ask.”

“He was stabbed by another inmate in a fight.” She saw Harry wince but didn’t particularly care if her bluntness was upsetting him. “Two of the other prisoners had grabbed me,” she stated flatly, trying to keep a rein on her emotions. Recounting it brought back the anger she’d felt toward Pit and his men, and the fear that had momentarily paralized her after Tom had been injured. “He turned his back on the man he’d been fighting to help me. If he’d been minding his own business, it wouldn’t have happened.” 

Harry looked shocked. “But you—“

“I got away from them and dragged Tom to safety _after_ he’d been hurt. I can look after myself; he needs to remember that.”

He seemed to have nothing to say to counter her statement. 

“Now, if it’s okay with you, I have my coffee,” she gestured to the rapidly cooling mug, “and my snack, and I’d really like to just sit here quietly and read these reports.” 

“Okay.” He raised his hands in front of his chest and stood. 

He’d always been easily cowed by her temper, she reflected, and she suddenly felt a little stab of guilt at snapping at him. “Harry?” She halted his retreat. “I’m actually a little tired already so I’ll probably have an early night, but we could have dinner together in the mess tomorrow, okay?” 

“Yeah.” His face lit in a smile. “I’ll see if Tom wants to join us.” 

Her own smile slipped a little and she wanted to protest, but she could see how important it was to Harry to have them both with him. “Sure,” she said, a little belatedly. “And Harry?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do me a favour and don’t tell Neelix that we’re coming. I don’t want him to go to any trouble with a meal.” 

Harry grinned and nodded, then he left her to her PADDs. 

***

The nine ball hit the far bumper with a soft _whunk_ then bounced and rolled toward the side pocket. Tom frowned in concentration. He plucked the thirteen from the other end of the table and set it on the felt, then bent his wrist and flicked it toward the bumper. It hit and bounced, and rolled into the nine with a satisfying _clack_. The nine tapped the six into the pocket. 

“Are you planning to do ‘zis all night?” Sandrine asked with a flounce of a dishcloth as she waved an expressive hand toward Tom. She was behind the counter wiping wine glasses and sliding them, upside down, into the rack above the bar. 

“Probably not,” Tom answered. “I have to leave in an hour.” 

She sniffed and dropped the cloth onto the bar, then came out from behind it and walked toward him. She slid an arm around his shoulders and turned his head so he was looking at her. “Zis is not like you, Thomas. Tell me what troubles you.” 

He leaned into the artificial warmth of her palm and smiled at her. “Why would you think there’s anything troubling me?” 

She straightened and chose not to answer. She asked a question instead. “Where is your young friend, ‘Arry? Did you two have a disagreement?” 

Tom’s forehead pulled into a frown. “With Harry? What would we argue about?” 

Sandrine lifted an elegant shoulder in a shrug. “What always comes between young men? _Une femme._

Tom shook his head. Despite his ravings on that prison barge, he knew that Harry didn’t have any romantic feelings for B’Elanna. “Believe me, Harry and I would never allow that to happen. Besides, we don’t exactly have the same taste in women, anyway.” He tried a grin. 

“So, why is ‘e not with you in your sorrow?” 

Tom sighed. “I don’t have any sorrow. And he’s not here because he had to work. He’ll come by later.” Was it really a lie if the person you were lying to was made of light and force fields instead of flesh and blood? He’d have to ask the Doctor. The truth was, he felt antsy. Off. Like _Voyager_ was wrong. Like _he_ was wrong. Twenty-four hours ago he was dying on the floor of a filthy alien ship, his wound festering and sending poison through his body. Twenty-four hours before that, he’d been in a knife fight with a man who believed that he could simply take whatever he wanted, B’Elanna included, if he was strong enough. 

Tom had been injured before: Caldik Prime had done a number on him and, according to his doctor, he’d been lucky to survive. The shuttle crash aside, he’d sprained almost every muscle in his body either playing sports or fooling around on the holodeck. He’d been in hand-to-hand combat with the Kazon, been fried by an energy beam, been stunned by a phase weapon. He’d even had his brain manipulated both by the fucking Baneans, and that thing that had made him hallucinate a lecture from his father. But a knife to the gut? That was more intimate, somehow. That was personal. He’d stared into the eyes of the man who had stabbed him, and seen his giddy pleasure, his _thrill_ in Tom’s pain and disbelief. 

It was absurd. 

And, after the deprivations of that prison barge, _Voyager_ with her clean carpets and shiny replicators dispensing endless food and water seemed even more absurd. He didn’t feel like he’d come home, he felt… adrift. Alone. 

Sandrine folded her arms in front of her chest and studied him for a moment. “ _Les problemes de coeur?_ ” Tom opened his mouth to deny it but she nodded decisively. “ _C’est ca, les problemes de coeur._ Tell me about it.” 

Tom stepped away from her and moved toward the other end of the pool table. He scooped up the twelve and rolled it toward the corner pocket. “There’s nothing to tell,” he lied.

“But you wish there to be.”

Did he? He wasn’t so sure about that, now. If he’d once thought he could pull off a purely sexual relationship with B’Elanna, like he and Meg had, what had happened between them on that ship had changed his mind. He might wish for that ease, but he knew now that any relationship he started with B’Elanna would be complicated. And he wasn’t certain that he’d prefer easy, anyway. 

He didn’t want just sex with her, he realized, he wanted romance. With B’Elanna, he wanted flowers, and candles, and quiet dinners in his quarters that lasted until breakfast. He wanted boring evenings sitting on his couch writing reports, and to spend their days off together water skiing or playing velocity on the holodeck. He wanted to hear warmth in her voice when he comm’d her, not professional detachment or cool curiosity. 

But she could barely look at him in sickbay, and hadn’t spoken to him since they’d been released. It was obvious that she regretted what they’d done while they were on that prison ship, and the distance that she’d set between them told him that she had no intention of allowing it to happen again. 

He shook his head. 

“It is that _belle_ brunette. The one with the dark eyes, yes?” Sandrine pressed.

Tom almost laughed; leave it to Sandrine to figure him out. There was likely no chance she was talking about Sue, but he tried to bluff anyway. “Lieutenant Nicoletti? We’re just friends.” Which was a stretch by any measure. 

Sandrine snorted, and her perceptive blue eyes narrowed as she squinted at him. She tilted her head and her expression softened. “ _Ca va, tous être bien en temps._ ”

She wandered back toward the bar and Tom sighed. Time was certainly something they had in abundant supply, though a couple of days ago he’d been certain that his had run out. Harry had met him in the mess for a late lunch earlier, and he’d told him of his hopes for dinner with him and B’Elanna tonight. They would be back on duty in the morning. He’d agreed, but was half expecting B’Elanna to suddenly become involved in some engineering problem at the last minute that only she could fix, and not show up. 

Tom had asked Harry to keep it quiet so Neelix wouldn’t have the chance to prepare that Welcome Home dinner he’d threatened them with yesterday. He’d made enough of a fuss over Tom at lunch, squeezing his shoulder in greeting, and bringing him a pitcher of ice water when Tom had told him that water was a bartered commodity on the prison ship. He’d regaled them with the story of prepping the _Baxiel_ , stored in the shuttle bay for the better part of the last two years, and how he’d fast-talked his way around the Akritirian Patrol ship, then outrun their guns when the captain had ordered him to head back to _Voyager_. It had been, according to Neelix, a real dogfight, and they’d only made it home due to his fancy flying. He’d reiterated that he was more than willing to take _Voyager’s_ conn if Tom needed more time off. 

Tom smiled, thinking of it. Maybe he’d give Neelix lessons in the hololab where he’d taught Kes how to fly a shuttle. They had a bridge simulation that he used to test and train his staff. Hopefully, Neelix wouldn’t land in his lap like Kes had; the ‘seas’ could sometimes get a little rough in some of the simulations.

He stilled as a thought struck him. Much like the mothballed _Baxiel_ Tom had a programme that he’d started back when they’d first been pulled into the Delta Quadrant. He’d set it aside in favour of creating _Sandrine’s_ , and hadn’t worked on it in at least a year, but he hadn’t erased it. 

“I’ll see you later,” he called to Sandrine as he walked quickly toward the swinging wooden doors of the tavern; the arch was just outside in the alley between _Sandrine’s_ and the fishmonger beside it. He waited until the doors swung closed behind him before he called for the access panel and closed the programme, then requested the unfinished one. “Computer, display specifications for holoprogramme, Paris-Como-alpha-one.” 

He leaned forward and read the streaming information. His belly twinged at the slight bend that was putting pressure on his stomach muscles, and he scowled. “Computer, one stool, with a backrest, one meter in height.” 

The stool materialized beside him, and he pulled it closer to the display and settled on it. “Much better,” he said as he started to tap at the screen.

***


	22. Chapter 22

“Neelix says we’re running low on several foodstuffs, including fresh vegetables and fruits. If we pass an M class planet, he’s requesting a stop-over so we can resupply.” 

The captain nodded and held out her hand for the PADD that contained their cook’s grocery list. “I don’t suppose we dare hope that we’ve run out of leola root?” she asked, her eyebrow lifting with her question. 

“Unfortunately, no,” Chakotay answered. “We still have four and a half metric tonnes in stasis.” 

Janeway scowled and her lips pursed in displeasure. “Harry, is there anything on the long-range sensors? Preferably uninhabited.”

Harry consulted his PADD and nodded. “There’s a binary system about ten light years from here that looks promising. Closer to the centre I’m reading both A and B class planetoids, but further out beyond their asteroid belt, there are three planets that can support life: either M or O class. I’ll know more if we get closer.” 

“How many planets are in the system?” Chakotay asked. “I’d like to know our odds.” 

“Sixteen,” Harry replied, “if you count the eight class D planetoids.”

“Anything else?” Janeway asked. 

“There’s a class C in the outer ring. One with frozen nitrogen and oxygen. Some hydrogen.” He shrugged. “If we were mining ice, it would be our best bet.” 

“Everything from soup to nuts,” Janeway murmured. 

“I’d take a handful of nuts over leola root stew,” Chakotay quipped. “How far out of our way is it?” he asked.

“Welll…” Harry drawled. He shot a glance at B’Elanna, who was hunched over the briefing room table, her tented fingers resting against her chin, seemingly lost in thought. “Once we get the warp drive back online, only a couple of weeks.” 

Nine point three days, at warp six. Tom had done the mental math. One of the things he had been good at in the Academy was rote memorization of the warp speed charts. 

“And if we don’t?” the captain asked.

Harry tapped a few commands into his PADD and frowned. “Oh.” Janeway’s eyebrow climbed toward her hairline, and Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “About a thousand years,” he said. 

“One thousand, fifteen point nine years, to be precise,” Tuvok commented. 

There was stunned silence around the table, then the captain burst out with an uncharastic snort of laughter. When she was under control, she turned to her chief engineer. “Lieutenant, how’s that repair coming?” 

B’Elanna sat up straighter and began her report, and Tom let her words flow over him. The Doctor had approved him for duty this morning, and he was on a half shift in deference to his recent injury, only four hours, one of which was being swallowed by the briefing that was anything but. He fully expected the captain to order him to change coordinates and head toward Harry’s system. Maybe, if B’Elanna was right and they could bring the warp core back up this afternoon, they might shave off a few seconds from the trip if they started now.

He realized that it had been ten days since he’d sat at _Voyager’s_ helm, and he thought that maybe he should have run that bridge simulation yesterday instead of working on his sailing programme. Once he’d started, the rest of his holodeck time had slipped away and he hadn’t realized he was about to overstay his time until the reminder had sounded. Since he’d concentrated on _The Lady Gray_ two years ago when he’d started crafting the programme, he’d spent his time mostly expanding the parameters to include the ancient villages along the shoreline of Lake Como. He’d saved his changes, then he’d sketched out the weather patterns he wanted for their sail. Warm, with a light breeze and a mix of sun and cloud so the sky wasn’t too blinding, but he thought he might throw in a sudden cloudburst or thunderstorm, just for fun. That way, they’d have to go below to shelter from the wind and rain. 

The captain called an end to the briefing, and Tom rose, his body on autopilot. He glanced across the table at B’Elanna, and their eyes met. She gave him a half-hearted smile, not much more than a twitch of her mouth, but he sent her a smile back. She’d already looked away and was heading toward the far door that led to the corridor and the turbolift. Apparently she didn’t have bridge duty today. Of course she didn’t, since she would be overseeing the powering up of the core in engineering. 

He followed Harry through the doorway, and took an unconscious breath as he stepped onto the bridge. The familiar _bloops_ and _trills_ washed over him and enveloped him, and he trotted down the steps to the helm. The movement only slightly jarred his side. 

***

Someone must have tipped off Neelix, and he’d been effusive in his delight at their return to duty, hosting a ‘welcome back’ dinner complete with a tablecloth, flowers in a vase, and _Voyager’s_ best ‘fleet china. It had been a bizarre parody of the private dinner date that Tom had meticulously planned while they’d been held captive, with crewmembers stopping by the table and offering their relief at their return. 

B’Elanna had, as predicted, backed out of dinner last night at the last minute, claiming tiredness, so he and Harry had shared a subdued meal in his quarters. Tom hadn’t really been in the mood to be on display, anyway. 

He was a little surprised to see her tonight. She’d only been a few minutes late, and greeted him with a cool friendliness, and inquired about his injury. She’d steadfastly avoided his gaze while they had choked down Neelix’ _celibratory_ dishes. Luckily for them, dessert had been replicated: fudge ripple pudding, in deference to B’Elanna’s affinity for chocolate. 

Harry had kept up a steady stream of chatter, recounting the last three days’ repairs to the ship. Tom had been offshift when the warp core had been brought online this afternoon, but he’d felt the slight rumble in _Voyager’s_ deckplates as they’d shot to warp. He’d been in his quarters catching up on some reading after a taxing three hours at the helm, and he’d felt the change in vibration; had almost heard the rattle. Months ago he’d mentioned to Harry that he could feel the difference between impulse and warp, and Harry had rolled his eyes and accused Tom of bullshitting him. 

Harry’s conversation had flowed seamlessly from the refit, to his hopes for the planetary system, still two weeks out as they coasted at warp four, to his own ideas for an upgrade to the sensor system. By the time he’d progressed to rehashing the rehaul on the matter-antimatter mix regulator, Tom had felt his shoulder muscles tensing, his teeth grinding together at Harry’s relentless cheerfulness. He was obviously delighted that they were both back safe and sound, and everything in his world had returned to normal. 

“I’m sorry to have missed it,” Tom said, referring to the burst of activity in engineering. “If I have to spend any more time ‘resting’, I may go out of my mind.” He hadn’t admitted it, but being stuck in his quarters had only made him more restless, more anxious; he needed to know what was going on, to be a part of it. Sliding back into his routine helped, but he wanted to be anywhere this evening but in the too-public mess.

Tom glanced across the table at B’Elanna, who appeared to be weathering Harry’s nervous buoyancy with more aplomb than he himself could muster. Once, during Harry’s oratory, their eyes had locked, and she had offered him a little smile before she’d looked down into her coffee mug and taken a sip. 

After yesterday, Tom hadn’t expected her to join him and Harry for dinner, but he was glad for her company. They hadn’t been alone together since the prison ship, he realized. They’d been on top of each other there in their small shelter—literally! He snorted and she glanced at him again before quickly returning her attention to Harry. He couldn’t command five minutes of her uninterrupted attention now. 

“B’Elanna. Hi.” 

Tom glanced up from his plate to see Bristow hovering over B’Elanna. He had a hand on her shoulder, and was standing beside her chair, boxing her into her seat. 

“Freddy. Hi.” She leaned back in her chair, her neck bent at an uncomfortable angle as she acknowledged him. 

“Hi,” he said again. 

He smiled at her, displaying huge white teeth and the cleft in his chin. Tom stilled, noticing how his black hair was set off by his blue uniform. The kid was good-looking, a natural charmer. He’d dated Jenkins for a few months, a year ago, and she’d been disappointed when they’d split. It hadn’t affected her concentration at the helm, but Tom had developed a dislike for the man over the situation, and he’d watched as Bristow cut a swathe through the ensigns in operations and engineering. He’d lived Tom’s reputation. 

He appeared to be reaching a little higher now.

“You look great,” Freddy said. “I heard you were back on duty.” 

“Thank you. I…” B’Elanna shot Tom a glance, “I feel much better.” 

“Good. That’s great,” Freddy nodded. 

Harry nudged Tom with his elbow and rolled his eyes. Freddy didn’t notice. 

“I thought if you were feeling up to it, we could play another round of parrises squares sometime soon. I need to recover my ‘honour’.” His smile was wide. 

B’Elanna stiffened and her chin came up just a fraction. Tom’s jaw clenched. He felt a wave of irritation ripple through him. What did the asshole mean by that? Was he making a crack about B’Elanna being Klingon? He knew all about Bristow, how he’d been hanging around engineering, around B’Elanna, before they’d been taken captive. About how she’d soundly trounced him in a game of parrises squares a few weeks ago. 

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “I’m pretty busy with recommendations for improvements to the warp drive system.” 

“But you need to relax some time,” he pressed. His voice had dropped an octave, and he flashed her a conspiratorial smile.

B’Elanna had turned toward him in her chair, and his hand had slid from her back to her upper arm and he was cupping the curve of her shoulder. Tom felt fury spark and flame in his gut. Why the fuck did he think he had the right to touch her? Why didn’t he keep his hands to himself? 

“Maybe. Maybe we could set up teams,” she suggested. “Engineering against sciences.” 

“I prefer one-on-one,” Freddy answered. “The game gets so… physical.” 

“She said no,” Tom muttered. 

“Sir?” Bristow turned his head and looked at him, finally acknowledging his presence at the table. His hand slid down B’Elanna’s upper arm. 

“Can’t you see she’s not interested?” Tom’s volume rose.

“Tom, what are you—” 

“I think B’Elanna can decide that for herself, Lieutenant.” 

Tom was up and on his feet before the idea to stand had even fully formed in his mind. He heard his chair fall over with a clatter, and he took two steps around the table until he was right in Freddy’s handsome face. He didn’t think, just reacted, his hand balling into a fist, arm swinging. “Get your fucking hands off of her!” 

Freddy was sprawled on the deck, eyes wide in shock, his hand cupping his jaw. B’Elanna’s mouth hung open, whatever she was going to say frozen on her tongue. Tom felt the force of the blow in his hand, the shock of it reverberating up his arm to his shoulder. He idly wondered if he’d broken a finger and thought that he really should talk to Chakotay about boxing lessons before he punched anyone else. 

It took him a moment to notice that Harry was standing, his arms around his shoulders, restraining him, but he wasn’t planning to move anyway. 

His hand was starting to throb. 

Ayala and Foster had been seated at the table next to them, and Ayala was up and on his feet before Tom had fully realized what he’d just done. Tom raised his hands, palms out, and he looked at B’Elanna. She glanced from Freddy, on his ass at her feet like a lapdog, to him, and she let out a long, slow breath as their eyes met and locked. 

Tom closed his eyes and let his arms drop. 

****

Chapter note: I know there are multiple warp calculators out there, but I used this one because the numbers amused me.

www.anycalculator.com/warpcalculator.htm


	23. Chapter 23

“Don’t say it, Chakotay.” 

“Say what?” 

B’Elanna’s lips pressed together as she turned and prowled to her dining table. She rapped her knuckles on the surface, then turned again abruptly and stared at him, her chin up, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. 

“That he’s been traumatized. That he was transferring his feelings from when we were being held captive in that fucking prison barge to here. Onto Freddy.” 

“You believe Tom thought he was defending you, keeping you safe?” 

“I think I can defend myself from Freddy Bristow!” She rolled her eyes and caught Chakotay’s mouth twitching. 

“I’m sure you can.” He tilted his head and posed another question. “What would you have done if the situation had been reversed?”

“If Freddy had asked Tom to play a game of parrises squares?” Her body jerked as she shrugged. “Nothing. Maybe told him that Freddy’s defence is weak on his right side and it’s easy to get past him.” 

She grabbed her uniform jacket off the back of her dining chair, and crossed to the ‘fresher and shoved it in. Chakotay was perched on the arm of her sofa, one leg casually raised on the armrest, the other straight out in front of him, for balance. His arms were folded across his chest. She glanced at him and caught his grin: that damned flash of dimples. 

“What if Megan Delaney had wrapped herself around him and told him how grateful she was that he was back? Or if Joe Carey confronted him, accusing him of putting your life in danger? What if Harry said that he’d been foolhardy suggesting you meet in an open area that was undefended?”

“That’s… ridiculous!” 

“But how would you have reacted?”

“Look, Chakotay, I’m fine.”

“Physically, you’ve recovered, yes. But I don’t see how you could possible be _fine_ with what happened to you, with what both you and Tom experienced.” 

“It’s over. We acknowledge that and move on, like we do with everything else that happens in this piece of shit quadrant!” 

He studied her for a moment then nodded, acknowledging the truth in her statement. “That’s true,” he said, “but I suspect Tom isn’t as ready to move on as you _think_ you are. Talk to him, B’Elanna, stop avoiding him. It will help both of you.”

“Avoiding him? I was eating dinner with him!” She _whoosed_ a sigh and rolled her eyes. “And will you moderate this little therapy session you’re planning?”

“If you want me to,” he agreed.

“I—” She flung up a hand then stilled, lowered it back to her side. “No. You’re right, we need to talk. Things happened that… we need to sort it out, to get back to where we were.”

“Set new boundaries.” He nodded. “Some situations naturally bring people closer together. They share certain intimacies. But once they’re out of that situation, once they’re safe again, it can be hard to reestablish the old relationship.” 

“We looked after each other,” she agreed. “With the clamp it…was hard.” She inhaled slowly and shook her head. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she and Tom had lost something on that prison barge, and that they would have to start again. 

“I don’t feel safe anymore.” She became aware that she was hugging herself tightly, and her head jerked up as she looked at her old friend and mentor. Her words came out almost defiantly, and she dared Chakotay to mock her for them. “Since I was a teenager, I’ve known that I could take care of myself, that I could defend myself. Because I’m Klingon, I’m strong, but… We weren’t safe in that prison, even when we were together, not really. I knew that. But Tom made me feel safer. And when he got hurt and I had to protect him, I was terrified. I just did what I needed to do. But now that we’re back…” She shook her head. “I don’t really know how I’m supposed to act anymore.” 

“I suspect he feels the same way.” 

He reached out toward her and she slid her hand onto his warm palm. His fingers closed over hers with a gentle squeeze, and she felt comforted; grounded. 

“When Bristow put his hand on your shoulder, how did that make you feel? What did you want to do?”

She huffed a laugh. “I wanted to punch him! I wanted to flatten him, to scream at him to get his hands off of me.” 

“And that’s why you didn’t move?” He nodded. “Because you were afraid you might do that to him?” 

“I guess so.” She shrugged. Nodded.

“When Tom hit him, how did that make you feel? Happy? Frightened? Shocked?”

“Chakotay, what’s the point of all this?” She pulled her hand out of his. “I didn’t want Tom to hit Freddy, I just wanted him to leave me alone and I didn’t trust myself to ask politely, okay? So, being falsely accused of a horrible crime and being imprisoned with a… a bunch of animals, and having Tom almost killed has made both of us…” She turned away from him and hugged herself again. “What are you going to say? That being together in that hell hole has made us codependent? That we’ve developed an unhealthy bond?” 

She turned back to him, expecting to find him close behind her, but he hadn’t moved from where he sat on the end of her couch. “Look in a fucking mirror, Chakotay! Every one of us on _Voyager_ is dependent on each other to survive out here.”

He was quiet for a moment, giving her time to cool off. “Actually, I was going to say that I owe Tom a debt of gratitude.”

She tilted her head, a wry smile tugging at her mouth. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to like him.” 

This time he did straighten and stand. He settled his hands on her shoulders and she felt his warmth, his steady presence soothing her. “There was a time when I didn’t, but I can admit that I’ve changed my mind.” 

She sobred. “He’d actually be glad to hear that.” 

“I’ll tell him.” Chakotay nodded. “You know, even before this, I noticed that Freddy Bristow wasn’t the only person on this crew paying attention to you.” 

The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile, and she felt a flash of embarrassment. “Tom’s really not the way you think. He’s not the same man who came on _Voyager_ two years ago.”

“None of us are the same person we were then.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “But even with the clamp making us paranoid, feeding into our fear and aggression, he…” She tilted her head and stared up at him. “He reminded me a lot of you, actually. He kept me focused, tried to keep me calm.” She wasn’t about to mention the incident when they’d been anything but calm. 

“When I first came down that chute, when I landed at the bottom, men started to fight over me.” She shook her head at the memory of the filthy half-feral men who had tried to claim her. The man Zio had killed, Pit and his goons, they were more animals than men. Even Zio himself, despite his claims that he’d beaten the influence of the clamp, had proven that he didn’t really value anyone’s life but his own. “I’m not used to feeling afraid, Chakotay, but I was. I couldn’t help thinking about the Cardassians, the stories of the camps. I kept thinking about Dalby’s wife.”

“That didn’t happen to you.” 

“I know, but…” she shook her head again, wishing she could banish the memory of that terror. “When Tom claimed me, he… saved me.” 

“That must have been difficult for you, feeling like a piece of property to be bartered over.”

She huffed a laugh. “Tom said they did the same with him. Or tried to. They do it with every new prisoner.” 

“So, how did he get away?” 

“Someone gave him a knife,” she answered. “They were more interested in a show than in claiming him, apparently.” 

Chakotay nodded. “But even armed he ended up injured. B’Elanna, whatever happened between the two of you down there, don’t you think it’s time you dealt with it and put it behind you?”

“And how am I supposed to do that?” she asked, her frustration rising again. 

He couldn’t know the deeper meaning of what he said next. Not even Chakotay’s infamous intuition and amature counselling abilities could have allowed him to read her mind or pick up on the memory that pricked her relentlessly. She was certain that he couldn’t _mean_ it in the way she _heard_ it, but his words struck her, and her body jerked from shock and the swell of longing that rushed through her when he said them.

“Maybe, now that you’re home and safe,” he said, his tone warm and rich with compassion, “it’s time that you claimed him.” 

*** 

“I understand what you’ve been through, Tom, I do, but I can’t condone that kind of violence in the middle of the mess hall.” 

It was likely that she did understand, he reflected. He had a sudden vivid memory of hearing about his father’s capture and subsequent detention by the Cardassians many years ago, when he’d captained the _Al-Batani_. Had Janeway, his science officer at the time, been captured with him? Tom didn’t know. He’d been too young to be told the details. But little children have big ears, and he’d overheard his mother being briefed about his father’s capture and subsequent rescue by one of Starfleet’s brass. It had taken until his stint in the Maquis for Tom to fully comprehend what it meant to be captured by Cardassians; his father had most assuredly been tortured, perhaps simply for entertainment. It fit with how Owen had behaved afterward, when he was finally home. The fallout of his ill-fated mission in the form of his hypervigilance with, and interference in, Tom’s life had strained their relationship to the point where Tom didn’t care enough about his father anymore to find out. 

But now he wondered if his conclusion was correct, though he certainly wasn’t going to ask the captain.

“Ensign Bristow has declined to press charges,” she continued. 

It didn’t make much difference to Tom. He had been confined to his quarters, and in a breach of protocol, Janeway had come to him. 

“I know that you must have felt protective of B’Elanna while you were on that prison barge, that you looked after each other. And I understand that you’re friends, but she doesn’t need you to protect her now. Especially from other members of the crew.”

Everyone was an armchair psychologist, Tom mused. He was standing stiffly, chin up, arms at his sides, standing in front of his sofa. If she was going to give him a dressing down, he wanted to be on his feet for it. 

She looked him up and down and sighed. “Relax, Tom,” she said. “I want to help you.” 

He closed his eyes and blew a breath. “I’ll apologize to Ensign Bristow,” he said. 

“I’m sure he’d appreciate that,” Janeway agreed. “You might want to consider apologizing to B’Elanna, too.” 

“Right. Yeah.” She must be furious, he thought, embarrassed. She hated being the center of attention unless she was showing off her engineering brilliance. “Yes, ma’am,” he amended. 

“Tom,” Janeway visibly softened and motioned to his sofa, “please, sit.” Rather than join him, she chose to swing a chair from his dining set and place it facing the couch. She sat, knees together, hands clasped on her thighs, and leaned toward him. 

“This isn’t the first time I’ve regretted the fact that we don’t have a counsellor on board. I know that every member of the crew could use someone to talk to occasionally, especially after traumatizing events like the one you’ve just endured.” 

Tom simply looked at her for a moment before he realized that she expected a reaction from him, a confirmation. He nodded. 

“Is there anyone you feel you can talk to? The Doctor, maybe, or Harry? I’ve always found Tuvok’s counsel helpful, but I’ve known him for a long time.”

There was no way Tom was going to burden Harry with the thoughts still pinging around in his head. And a laser scalpel couldn’t fix what was wrong with him, either. It wasn’t something you could simply cut out.

“I know Chakotay has been speaking with B’Elanna, maybe the two of you need to talk about your experience, together.” 

“That’s a good idea, Captain,” Tom agreed. Anything, anything to get her to leave so he could be alone. He wanted to ask her if she and dear-old-dad had ever got together to talk over the good times with their Cardassian hosts. 

“If,” Janeway continued, “and I want that ‘if’ to be very clear to you, Tom, if I allow you to return to duty, can I count on you to behave like a Starfleet officer? To not lose your cool if something happens up there that makes your heart pound? We’re on course to Harry’s system, and if it’s inhabited, if we’re suddenly confronted by a hostile alien in a first-contact situation, I need to know that you won’t lash out and fire phasers before I can attempt a little diplomacy.”

“Captain,” Tom held his breath for a moment before releasing it, “you can count on me. I just want to get back to normal. I need to be back on duty.” Surely she’d felt the same, after Arias. 

She studied him for a long moment, then sighed and shook her head. “I should probably confine you to sickbay and have the Doctor run a full series of tests on you,” she said. 

Tom’s expression wrinkled in a frown. “Oh come on, Captain, I’d rather have you put me in the brig.” He was only half joking. 

She smiled indulgently at him, then sobred. “I’m worried about you, Tom, both of you.”

‘I know about the Arias Expedition’. It was on the tip of his tongue, but she didn’t deserve his anger or his attitude any more than Freddy Bristow had. “I’ll be fine,” he said instead. “Really. Let me prove it to you.” 

Finally, she nodded and stood, waving him back into his seat as he moved to stand as well. “Alright. But half-shifts until I say otherwise. And you will see the Doctor, right now, and you will talk with B’Elanna about what happened to both of you on that prison ship.” 

Tom jerked. Did she know? Had B’Elanna told her? Surely not. She must simply be referring to the stress of being locked up, and Tom’s injuries. “I… I really don’t know what to say about it,” he confessed. 

Janeway leaned forward and squeezed Tom’s knee. “I know,” she said. “But the words will come.” Her mouth lifted in a small smile. 

She does know, he realized. And instead of feeling supported, instead of drawing strength from her experience, he felt smaller, diminished. More vulnerable.

**

He’d been tossing and turning for the last forty-five minutes, unable to get comfortable, unable to shut off his brain and relax. Even when he closed his eyes he felt like he was staring into the dark, eyes wide open. The captain had accompanied him to sickbay—three times in the last four days, a record even for him—instructing the Doctor that she expected him to apply his rudimentary psychology subroutines in his evaluation of Tom’s mental health. 

Though the Doc had run a quick check of his belly this morning and he’d been cleared to go back on duty, after the captain spoke to him he subjected Tom to a complete physical examination including a scan of his biochemical levels. The Doc had been looking for any residual effects of the clamp’s interference in Tom’s brain chemistry, but Tom knew that his anger and antsiness was justified. No one could have gone through what he and B’Elanna had on Akritiri and not feel angry about it. 

Before he’d released him, the Doctor had cautioned Tom that he might feel more residual psychological effects from his ordeal, and ordered him to come to him immediately if he experienced feelings of isolation, of not belonging, heightened anxiety, or a deadening of his emotions. 

Tom was reasonably certain that Freddy Bristow wouldn’t classify Tom’s emotions as ‘deadened’. 

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He felt physically exhausted but he wasn’t sleepy. A glance at the old fashioned alarm clock on his bedside table revealed that gamma shift had started forty-five minutes ago. Tom sighed. He was scheduled for the back half of alpha shift tomorrow—today, he amended—and was supposed to meet with Chakotay in the morning. He grimaced at the idea. If he absolutely had to talk to someone about his experiences of the last week, he’d choose Tuvok. Maybe he knew some sort of Vulcan mind trick that would make him forget it all. 

He expelled a harsh puff of air and threw back the bedcovers and sat up. There was no point in lying here, faking it. The harder he tried to fall asleep, the more his brain pinged with thoughts, and he really wanted to find some sort of distraction before he worked his way back around to that prison barge. His stomach rumbled reminding him that it had been several hours since his aborted dinner. He dressed in a tee shirt and sweatpants and headed out into the corridor; maybe a warm mug of tea would make him sleepy? 

The lighting in the mess hall was surprisingly bright for oh one hundred, Tom thought as he passed through the doors, but then again his midnight snack was beta shift’s supper. He heard a _clang_ and a muffled exclamation, and peered through the passthrough into the galley. “Neelix?” he asked, “what are you doing here so late?” 

“Oh! Tom! It’s you.” Neelix popped up from behind one of the stasis compartments. “Returned to the scene of the crime? Don’t hit me, I’m just joking.” He held his hands in front of his face, palms out in a symbol of surrender, and waggled his bushy eyebrows. 

Tom cringed. “I’m really—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Neelix waved a hand in Tom’s direction. “I heard that Ensign Bristow wasn’t hurt, though Ensign Jetal made quite the fuss over him. Your little display of temper may be responsible for _Voyager’s_ newest couple!” He chuckled, then sobred as he eyed Tom critically. “It’s late, shouldn’t you be in bed?” 

“I could say the same to you,” Tom replied. “Do you need help with that?” He gestured to the large covered platter that Neelix was finessing into the cold storage unit. 

“Oh, no,” Neelix declined his offer. “I’m just setting up a cold buffet for gamma shift’s lunch, then I’m headed to my quarters. Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?” 

Tom shook his head. “I just came up for a cup of tea. I’m having a little trouble nodding off.” 

Neelix observed him for a long moment. “When I have trouble sleeping, I make myself a big hearty mug of _sklree_ petal tea. When you brew it for six minutes and forty-seven seconds exactly at eighty-seven point three degrees, the petals release their sap to produce a rich, piquant flavour that’s guaranteed to knock you out ten minutes after you finish your mug.”

Ten? Tom thought. Not nine point eight seven? “That sounds great,” he said instead. “But you don’t need to go to any trouble.” 

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” Neelix waved away the notion with a flap of his fingers. “You take a seat,” he instructed with a smile. “One mug of tea coming right up.” 

Tom chose a table and sat facing the galley. He knew that he should probably talk to Neelix, but he didn’t want to encourage him to ask about what had happened while he and B’Elanna had been held by the Akritirian Guard, and he didn’t think he could handle Neelix’ chit-chat, either. Luckily, Neelix seemed to sense Tom’s need for solitude: he hummed tunelessly to himself as he prepared Tom’s drink and didn’t try to engage him in conversation. 

The aft mess doors hissed open and Tom turned his head to see who had come in. B’Elanna was poised on the threshold, staring at him. She looked ready to turn and run. He saw the moment she made up her mind to enter: her shoulders went back, and her chin came up, and her features took on a determined expression. She walked deliberately toward his table. She was still in uniform, which didn’t surprise him in the least; if he had a tendency to use the holodeck to put off thinking about things he’d rather avoid, B’Elanna immersed herself in work. 

She looked tired. 

“Hi,” he said. 

“Hi.” Her acknowledging smile looked more like a grimace. “Chakotay ordered me to talk to you, so…” 

He nodded. “The captain said the same thing to me.” He gestured to her clothing. “Are you on gamma?”

“No, I—” 

“Here you go, you two,” Neelix interrupted them, arriving at the table with two mugs of strongly-scented tea and a plate of small sandwiches. “I brought you some pokkel berry jam turnovers, in case you were hungry. I’d love to stay and chat but,” he yawned elaborately and patted his belly, “I’m beaten. I think I’ll turn in.” 

“It has been a long day,” B’Elanna agreed. 

They both watched as Neelix removed his apron and hung it behind the serving counter, then waved to them as he disappeared out the door. Tom gestured to the chair across from him, and B’Elanna only hesitated for a moment before she took it. They sat in silence for a few seconds. Tom wrapped his hands around his mug and lifted it to take a sniff. He detected a hint of cinnamon. He tried a gulp and was pleasantly surprised; the tea tasted strong, but the flavour wasn’t unpleasant.

“I think it’s safe,” he said.

She nodded and took a tentative sip, then set her mug back down on the table, her movements precise. “You’re up late.” 

Her tone held a hint of warriness that Tom found painful to hear. “I’m having trouble sleeping.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. “I have dreams where I’m back in…”

“I know.” He nodded. “Me too.” Last night, he’d dreamed he was back in the correctional facility in Auckland. Janeway had come to tell him that she’d changed her mind and had left him there. He’d tried to run after her, tried to call out to her, but the wound in his side had opened as he ran, and blood had flowed freely down his belly. He’d fallen to the ground gasping in pain.

“I guess that’s probably normal, right?” she asked.

Tom’s jaw firmed. “I think so.” 

“I mean,” she continued, “I can’t imagine anyone going through what we did and not having nightmares about it.” 

“Yeah. I tried to tell that to the captain, but…” 

Her head tilted to one side in agreement, and her gaze slid back to her mug. “I know. I said the same thing to Chakotay.” She flicked a glance back to his face, and her lips compressed on a smile. “You know, I’m the one who breaks noses around here.” 

Tom grimaced. He felt his cheeks heat and wondered if he’d turned red. “I’m sorry I embarrassed you.” He shook his head. “He just… When he wouldn’t leave you alone, I guess I just snapped.” 

Her mouth twitched, but he didn’t think she was holding back a laugh. 

“If I’m being honest,” she said, “I almost hit him myself.” 

Tom glanced away, looked back. “The Doc warned me that I might feel jumpy, aggressive…” 

“Feelings of anxiety? What was that he said, a ‘heightened sense of awareness’? Me too.” 

Tom nodded. He’d thought he’d got that particular lecture because of his over-reaction to Bristow, but it made sense that the Doc had cautioned them both. “When I was at the conn this morning, after the briefing, I…” It was hard to put into words how he’d felt. The bright lights and familiar sounds of the bridge should have enveloped him like an old friend, but he’d spent the three hours of his shift becoming more and more antsy, more nervous. When Baytart had come up behind him to relieve him, Tom had almost swung at him, until he’d realized that Pablo wasn’t a threat. 

“It was hard,” he said quietly, “my back is to everyone.”

“When I was in main engineering today, just for a moment, I was afraid,” B’Elanna admitted. She shook her head and her hair swung around her cheeks. “I’m not used to feeling that way.”

It hit him like a punch to the gut, and Tom fought the urge to take her hand in his. “What scared you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing, really. It’s just that there are so many places to hide. I could hear people talking but I couldn’t see them.”

“I guess the Captain is right,” Tom’s voice was soft. “We need to talk about this to someone.”

She snorted. “Who? Harry? Chakotay? The Doctor?”

“His bedside manner might need some work but he’s—”

“He’s not programmed to be a counsellor.”

“He’s all we have. I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable spilling my guts to the Captain or Chakotay, and I’m sure as hell not going to tell Harry about—” He swallowed the sentence before it spilled out between them, but by B’Elanna’s reaction, he might as well have voiced it. 

She looked away, and her fingers twitched on her mug. “I should never have—”

“You?” Tom frowned, surprise and self-disgust lending an edge to his tone. “B’Elanna, I’m the one who let it go too far. I’m the one who grabbed you and…” And hauled her against him; tried to strip her shirt off of her. He glanced at her, and she was starting at him, her mouth twisted in a scowl. 

“Tom, I’m pretty sure that I’m the one who started it. _I’m the one_ who crawled onto your lap,” she said, echoing his words. “ _I’m the one_ who unfastened your pants.” 

He shook his head. “I should have stopped it. I shouldn’t have let it go that far.” 

She looked away. “The clamp…” 

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. 

“Well, it’s a good thing the Doctor removed them or…” She grinned and gave an elaborate shrug of a shoulder.

He leaned toward her, and his voice turned silky. “Are you telling me that it’s not safe for me to be alone with you, Lieutenant?” 

“I’d watch your back if I were you, Paris.” 

Her cheeks had pinked, but her eyes were sparkling as she teased him. Tom was about to reply when the far doors hissed open and a group of beta shift stragglers spilled into the mess hall. Their laughter drifted across the mess, and Tom watched them head toward the cold buffet that Neelix had set out on the counter. He looked back at B’Elanna and smiled. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’m safe for now.”

She hid behind her mug of tea as she took a gulp, and Tom lifted the plate of pastries and offered it to her. “Pokkel berries?” 

Her nose wrinkled. “Didn’t the Doctor mention something about reduced appetite?”

Tom nodded and eyed the plate warily, then he popped one into his mouth and bit down. Surprisingly, it wasn’t terrible. “Actually, it’s not half bad,” he said.

“That’s what you said about the tea,” she reminded him.

She looked skeptical but reached for one and took a cautious bite. Her face puckered, and Tom grinned. “I didn’t say it was good,” he clarified. 

She glanced down and studied the contents of her steaming mug, then looked back at him. “I went to Morra’s compound. The day you found the pipe. I tried to talk them into taking us in, but they refused.”

Tom frowned, trying to place her statement within his jumbled memories of the prison barge.

“You thought I was hiding something from you and you were right. You kept accusing me of going to see Pit.” 

She raised her chin a fraction, preparing for battle, and Tom felt instant remorse at the way he’d accused her of plotting to leave him in the prison. He drew a breath. “B’Elanna, I—”

“They said I could stay but they refused to take you. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I was afraid you might agree and try to force me to go.” Her gaze was steady on his. 

Emotion welled inside him. He hadn’t cried in years, but he thought he might, now. “You’re right; I would have.” A thought struck him. “But they let us in, after I was stabbed.”

She nodded, and her mouth quirked with that crooked smile he loved. “I’m Klingon, Tom. I thought you were going to die. I wasn’t going to accept no. I forced Ferryn to open the gate.”

“Lieutenant?” Ensign Vorik interrupted them. “If you have a moment, I have an observation about the mix-chamber flow rate that I would like to discuss with you.” 

Tom watched B’Elanna choke down her mouthful of biscuit before she turned to the engineer. “I’ll be right over,” she replied with a nod. She reached for her mug of tea and took a hearty swig. 

Vorik nodded and inclined his head at Tom in acknowledgment, “Lieutenant”, then walked away. 

“He just came out of nowhere,” Tom commented.

“He has a habit of doing that,” she agreed. 

“I hope you noticed that I didn’t punch him,” he quipped.

“Admirable restraint,” B’Elanna nodded. “I’m sure the captain would approve.” 

She finished her drink and stood to go, but Tom stopped her. “You know,” he said quietly, “it wasn’t all the clamp.”

She paused, and he saw her mouth quirk before she replied. “Yeah, I know.” She flashed him a little smile as she moved off, her eyes bright with promise, and Tom’s breath hitched; his belly warmed. 

“B’Elanna?” She turned back, one eyebrow raised. “Friends?” 

She nodded. “Friends.” 

Tom breathed a sigh of relief and watched her go.

***


	24. Chapter 24

Two weeks later… 

Tom read the scrolling information on the shuttle’s sensor panel, and frowned. He reached forward and tapped in a set of coordinates to initiate a new sensor sweep. 

“We've been out here almost 5 hours and we haven't seen any sign of those energy signatures,” B’Elanna informed him. “Isn't it time to admit they were nothing more than galactic background noise?”

They had arrived at Harry’s binary system this morning, and an initial scan had picked up not only an M class planet that was rich with vegetation, but also some strange sensor readings that had piqued Tom’s interest. 

He’d asked Harry to double check his results, but Harry had found nothing. Tom had put it down to a ‘ghost’ in the system, and was about to run a diagnostic on his sensor station when B’Elanna had chimed in, saying that Tom’s blip had just reappeared. It was gone again before he and Harry could confirm it. It had felt to Tom like a moon in the night sky that was continually obscured by moving clouds. They’d monitored their scanners, clocking its reappearance a further three times, but hadn’t found a pattern to its on-again, off-again appearance. 

It was similar to the radiation signature left behind by a warp field, but just ‘wrong’ enough that Tom couldn’t pin down a viable explanation. He had expressed an interest in checking out the strange readings despite the fact that they were originating in the opposite direction to Harry’s planet. Janeway, not one to let a scientific curiosity go unexplored, had ordered Tom and B’Elanna to take the _Cochrane_ and check it out. Rollins had taken the conn, and Tom had turned toward the engineering station, waiting for B’Elanna to be relieved so they could head to the ‘lift together. She’d hesitated for a fraction of a second, and he wondered if he’d imagined it. 

He had headed directly to the shuttlebay, comming Culhane and informing him that they were on their way. B’Elanna mentioned that she needed to stop by engineering before they left, and they’d shared a quiet, slightly awkward, few minutes in the ‘lift together. Hours later, they’d had no luck in tracking down the origin of the odd readings. 

“I want to keep looking a while longer, just to be sure,” he answered. He saw a blur of motion from the corner of his eye as B’Elanna shifted, then she howled suddenly, and he jumped and snapped his head toward her. He was half expecting her to lunge at him. “What's wrong?” he asked.

She grunted. “Cramp.” She had a leg drawn up to her belly, booted foot on the shuttle’s padded seat, and was massaging her calf muscle. “Klingon bodies weren't meant to sit in a cockpit for five hours at a stretch.” 

Tom _hmmm_ ed in sympathy. To be honest, he was feeling a little cramped himself. He peered at her: she was frowning, and he sensed a contained energy rolling off of her, like she was about to leap up and start running laps in the small shuttle. “You've been angling to get back to _Voyager_ for about two hours now. You have a big dinner date or something?”

She swung her head toward him and frowned even harder. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, I just thought maybe there was a reason you wanted to get back.” Tom shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. “I've noticed Bristow’s still hanging around engineering. Around you.” 

He didn’t intend the slight note of bitterness to slip into his tone but there it was, souring his mood and attempting to make him feel like an idiot for even bringing it up. The idea disturbed him more than he cared to admit. He’d hoped that his sock in jaw had served as a warning to Bristow to back off, but apparently not. 

“Freddy Bristow is dating Ensign Jetal,” B’Elanna informed him. “That’s why he’s hanging around engineering.” She peered at him for a moment then went back to massaging her leg. “Why are you so interested?”

Because he’d taken a keen interest in her romantic life a few months ago. Because, after their _incident_ on that prison ship, he thought the fact that she lived the life of a Tabern monk belied the Klingon blood that ran in her veins. He evaded her question with an observation of his own. “He’s not the only guy who’s been spending a lot of time with you.” At her perplexed expression, Tom elaborated. “It seems like Ensign Vorik is practically mag-locked to your side lately.”

She snorted her disbelief. “Vorik works under me.” 

Vulcan or no, Tom reflected, he was pretty sure Vorik wanted to work ‘over’ her too. 

“And I’ve...taken an interest in him,” she continued. “He’s one of my most promising junior engineers.” 

“Uh huh.” Tom nodded and turned back to his panel. “Okay. Who you choose to spend time with is your own concern, I guess.”

“And none of your business,” she agreed. 

Her tone was light, teasing, and Tom couldn’t help but smile. He’d finished the programme a week ago, and had only been waiting for an opportunity—and the guts—to ask her to try it out with him. “Well, if you ever have a free evening,” he kept his tone light, “I have a holodeck programme you might enjoy. Sailing on Lake Como?”

“Sailing?” she asked. “You mean on water?” Her surprise was almost comical.

“Yeah, on water,” he laughed. “On a sailboat. A yacht.”

“A yacht?”

“An eleven point two meter, single mast cutter, modelled after the 1937 winner of the America’s Cup, _Ranger_. But she was forty-one meters, so…” 

“A little big to fit in the holodeck?” She was outright teasing him now.

“A little big to handle on my own. Or… with a friend. But _The Lady Grey_ is the perfect size for a crew of two. I could pack that dinner we talked about, and we could sit out on the deck, under the stars…” 

She looked almost swayed. 

She was silent for a few moments, and allowed her foot to slide to the deck as she straightened in her seat. “I have Thursday afternoon off,” she said, mentioning a time three days from now. “Harry and I were going to play velocity, but he might like to come, too.” 

“That sounds great,” Tom said. Just great. At least she didn’t suggest Vorik join them. An alarm beeped and Tom swung his seat around and checked his sensor readout. 

“Those energy signatures are back,” B’Elanna confirmed.

“We must have crossed into a tachyon field.” Tom had to shout over the alarm. The shuttlecraft shuddered, and they heard a _clonk_ from overhead.

“What's that?”

“A ship has locked onto our hull.” Tom cursed under his breath. Instead of flirting with B’Elanna, he should have been paying attention to his sensors!

“Why didn't we detect it?” she snarled. She was busy trying to bring more power to their shields.

“The tachyon field must have disrupted our sensors,” Tom replied. He was about to suggest they send an EM pulse along the hull to try to shake off their unwanted visitors when the air behind them hummed and shimmered with a purple light, and two aliens appeared in the aft of the shuttle.

“I'm Lieutenant Tom Paris, of the starshi—” Pain enveloped him, sharp and thin, an electric current zinging along his skin and rooting itself in his brain. He felt brittle, like he was about to burst into pieces, then sensation stopped and darkness claimed him.

****** 

End Note: 

B’Elanna surprises herself by actually enjoying her sailing ‘date’ with Tom and Harry. She’s wowed by Tom’s attention to detail in the ship itself, but also in the villages that dot the shores of the lake, and the other sailboats in the distance. She’s interested in learning about the rigging, and different sails and their purpose, and is surprised and impressed that Tom knows all that stuff. It’s a side of him that she knew nothing about. 

Harry gets seasick during the ‘storm’ and spends most of the afternoon below deck, lying down.

Second End Note: If anyone was hoping for a smutty ending where they’re together, I wrote an episode coda MANY years ago (which I’ve refrained from rewriting but just barely) called Chutes and Ladders. You can find it in the same series: episode rewrites.


End file.
